Night Shift
by Psycho Babble
Summary: Phoenix Matthews arrives in Vegas
1. pt 1

Night Shift

Part 1

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI, or any recognised entity in this fanfiction. No money is being made from this piece of fanfic.

Phoenix Matthews, Robert Benning and Darren Benning are mine.

I'm not American so I'm not going to be using American terms for things. I'll probably be changing from first person POV to second person POV. I'm probably going to make a few mistakes in regards to equipment and stuff and if I do it is accidental.

**RATED R – **Language, graphic scenes and sexual content.

(One week after 'Past Crimes')

Night had fallen on Las Vegas. Not that it made any real difference here; the bright lights meant that it was always daytime in Vegas. And for those that worked the night shift in the crime lab it was just another night of putting together the puzzles that others made for them. For one in person in particular it was a little different though, for almost a year Phoenix Matthews had worked as the only CSI in the town on Tumbleweed, not far from Vegas. But she was used to keeping strange hours anyway, and like those who already worked the CSI night shift she was the kind of person who went to bed only after a crime was. She was nervous enough as it was, to make matters worse though she knew she was late for her first night. She tried to calm herself down a little as she got out of the lift.

"Hey, you finally made it." A voice called from not far away.

"Please don't rub it in, Warrick." She said to the tall lanky CSI whom she had recently worked another case in Tumbleweed. A young woman with dark hair joined him; she held a file that was as thick as a novel.

"I wouldn't dream of it. Sara Sidle meet Phoenix Matthews." He introduced the woman who gave me a gap toothed smile as she held out a hand to shake.

"Great, I'm not the new kid on the block anymore." She said.

"Nice to meet you. Can you point me in the direction of Gil Grissoms office?" I asked.

"Straight down this hallway the door just next to the lab with the weird looking guy in it." She said.

"Thanks, I'll see you later." I hurried in the direction she had given me and knocked on the door that was ajar.

"Come in." Came a distracted voice. I pushed the door open and stepped inside, past jars containing things I probably didn't want to identify. A grey haired man sat behind a cluttered desk looking over something. He waved in the direction of a chair, not looking up. Eventually he took of his glasses to look at me.

He could remember her; it was like looking at a photograph album that had been filled up over the years. The same eyes, and hair; albeit it was shorter. But he could remember it like yesterday. As if he could ever forget. His first case after becoming a CSI.

(Flashback)

The child sat across the desk from him. According to the file he had been given she was seven years old. Long curly brown hair that she chewed on incessantly. She was nervous; Grissom could see that straight away. And terrified, so much terror he could feel it rolling off her in waves. He couldn't say he blamed her. Her uncle had been murdered recently. Grissom had already met her once, just briefly.

When he and his then partner; an older woman, Tracy Wright, a CSI3 had gone to the home of her father; who as the older brother of Robert Benning; their murder victim, and been the only living relative of the murdered man. He had met her when she had been the one to answer the door. She was a cute child and Grissom had an idea that when she got older she would still be cute, in the girl next door kind of way. A homely kind of cute.

Tracy had let him take the lead here. He had tried to question the girl earlier that week, but had been hindered by her father; Darren Benning. The man seemed nervous as well, he didn't want to allow his daughter to be questioned without him present. Almost as if he was afraid she might say something about him. It was only natural, Grissom mused. All of the evidence of the murder scene pointed in Darren Benning's direction. It was Grissom's idea that they should get a court appointed attorney, someone who would look out for her wellbeing and not her fathers. It had taken a lot of convincing but finally a judge had agreed. Darren Benning had; of course, objected to this, but the judge had been adamant, the judge in particular hated anything even remotely related or close to child abuse of any kind. And now here she was with her own attorney, but she was afraid of something, what that was exactly Grissom didn't know…yet. He had an idea, sure, but like Tracy had told him 'Ideas are all very well and good, but try and back them up with evidence, because it won't lie.

"My name is Gil, Phoenix; do you know why you're here?" He asked. At first she pretended she hadn't heard him, but after a few moments she nodded imperceptibly.

"Daddy says it's cos you want me to say bad things bout him." She mumbled. Grissom glanced at the female officer who stood near the door, but she said nothing.

"Well your daddy's wrong; I don't want you to say bad things about him. All I want you to tell me is the truth. Is that okay with you?" Grissom had never been very good with children. She shrugged a little.

"I guess so." She said.

"You know what the truth is don't you?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"If I told you that this paper was black with that be a lie or the truth?" He held up a piece of white paper. Her lip turned up a little as she eventually looked at him.

"I'm not stupid, I know what a lie is." She said.

"I'm sorry; I didn't intend to be mean to you." He said.

"Don't matter." She said, shrugging her small shoulders, wincing as she did so.

"I need you to tell me if you know where your father was on the day that your uncle was killed." He said.

"He was at work." She said.

"Are you sure?" He asked.

"Daddy said 'at's where he was."

"Yes, but was he actually there?"

"I rang him when I came home from school, cos he told me to always do that. But when I rang he wasn't their, Mrs Teagle said he's gone out for a while." Her forehead knotted a little.

"But daddy said lying is bad, so he can't have gone out." She was obviously confused by the conflicting statement she had just made, Grissom thought.

"Did Mrs Teagle say where daddy had gone?" Grissom asked. The little girl shook her head.

"Nope, just that he had gone out and wouldn't be back for a while." She replied.

"Okay. Do you know what time he came home at?" He asked.

"Just after five o clock, I just finished homework and daddy says I need to be finished at five otherwise I gets into trouble. And he comes in just after I finished." She said it as if this was normal, having a set routine for everything. Hell, Grissom thought, the man probably had a set time for everything. Five o' clock I come home, five ten we have fun, five thirty we stop having fun. Grissom shook his head, just because he didn't like the guy didn't mean that he was guilty of any wrongdoing. At least not yet.

"He told me Uncle Robbie had been hurt in an accident and I wouldn't be able to see him again." Grissom looked at the female officer again. He, Tracy and the detectives had only informed Darren Benning of his brothers death at eight pm, so how did he know that his brother was hurt before that?

"Did he tell you anything else, Phoenix?" He asked. She shook her head once, but something told Grissom that she wasn't telling the whole truth.

"He didn't say nothing else." She whispered.

"Phoenix?" He prompted.

"She's already answered your question, Mr Grissom." The court appointed attorney said. Phoenix looked at her attorney and then at the table.

"He said it was my fault." She whispered.

"Your fault? How was it your fault?" He asked. She stared at the table, almost as if she were hoping it would make Grissom and his questions disappear.

"Phoenix, I need to find out what happened to your Uncle Robbie and to do that I need you to tell me the truth. You want to help me find out what really happened to your Uncle Robbie don't you?" He asked reasonably. After a moment she nodded.

"Yeah," and then.

"But daddy'll get inta trouble." She mumbled.

"Do you ever do something wrong?" He asked.

"Sometimes."

"And you get punished for it, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well you father will only get in trouble if he did something wrong. If he hurt your Uncle Robbie then he'll get into trouble." Grissom said. Her eyes widened.

"No, he can't get into trouble. If he gets in trouble then I go to the bad place." She said.

"The bad place?" He asked. She said nothing, didn't even look at him.

"Phoenix, I can help you. I promise you won't go to the bad place if you help me out, just a little." He said. She looked at him through narrowed eyes, as if trying to gauge whether or not he was telling the truth or not. Grissom, looked right back even though he didn't want to. Obviously, if her reaction was anything to go by, she was afraid of trusting people, and he was no exception.

"I told Uncle Robbie." She whispered so quietly Grissom had to strain to hear her.

"You told Uncle Robbie what?" He asked. She slouched in her seat, refusing to answer. Grissom heaved a quiet sigh, he felt like he was trying to dig a hole using only his hands.

"What did you tell Uncle Robbie?" He repeated. Her lip trembled and she refused to meet his steady gaze.

"I told him what daddy done."

"What did he do?" He asked. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, tears that she didn't wipe away.

"I can't…I can't tell you." She mumbled thickly.

"Why not?" He asked. She shook her head. He wanted to back down and leave her alone. He looked towards the attorney.

"Perhaps we should take a break now." He suggested to her. She nodded.

"How about we go get something to drink, Phoenix?" She asked. The girl didn't move, it was like she was carved out of marble.

"If I tell then I'll get in trouble again." At last her eyes met Grissoms and he saw so much pain and guilt there that he knew he was on the right track. He wanted to go find her father right then and there and show the man what it felt like to be helpless.

"You won't, I promise you." His voice was soft now.

"Phoenix, let's go get something to drink." The attorney said again. The girl looked at her, her face angry and sad all at once.

"You don't understand!" She yelled loudly, her eyes flicked back to Grissom.

"Neither of you! He hurt Mommy and Uncle Robbie! If I tell you he'll hurt you as well." She took in a great heaving breath and glared at Grissom. After a moment she broke down, her face in her hands.

"All he does is hurt me and he don't care, all he wants is…" her muffled voice trailed off and she looked at Grissom. Pools of helpless rage and pain and guilt.

"I can't stop him, no one can stop him. I told Uncle Robbie and he said he'd take care of it and then daddy killed him cos I told. An' he'll do the same to you if I tell."

"No he won't, Phoenix. He's going away for a long time." Grissom reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, and then pulled his hand back when she jerked away from him.

(End flashback)

Now she sat in the chair across his desk, a grown woman. She showed no sign of the trauma she had suffered at the hands of the man who was supposed to love and protect her. She was nervous, he could tell. But that was probably from arriving late and it was her first night as well.

"Phoenix Matthews?" He asked.

"Yes, sir." I said. He smiled trying to put me at ease, effort that he wouldn't take with any of the others.

"No need to be so formal, call me Gil." He told me. He stood up and came around the desk to me.

"Come with me; let's get the introductions out of the way first." He led me to the break room where Warrick and Sara were still poring over the same folder. Nick Stokes, the other CSI who had come to Tumbleweed with Warrick sat at a table staring into a Styrofoam cup in front of him. A woman with reddish blonde hair turned around as we entered.

"Everyone this is Phoenix Matthews, Phoenix Matthews meet Catherine Willows, Warrick Brown, Nick Stokes and Sara Sidle. I believe you already know Warrick and Nick." He said.

"Yeah, we had a…interesting first meeting." I said.

"You'll be working with Nick this fine night; he's going to show you how things work around here. Nicky, my boy, what are you working on?" He asked.

"Suspected kidnapping; mother and daughter." He said.

"Anything yet?" Grissom asked. Nick looked at him sceptically.

"You asked me to wait, so I'm waiting. Haven't even gone out there yet." He said. Grissom gave him that angelic smile that usually sent a chill down people's spines. Nick just shrugged, his expression suggesting that he didn't much care how Grissom looked at him.

"Catherine?" He looked at the red, blonde woman.

"Still working that murder from last night, Greg's still working on the stuff I gave him." She replied.

"Warrick, Sara?" He looked at the last two in the room. Warrick look at him, and then at Sara, shrugged and nodded at Grissom, meaning she should take the lead.

"Still no closer to finding out just whether it was an accident or…" she shrugged.

"Keep at it." Grissom said.

"Come on, Gris, you know us better than that." Warrick said.

"Alright, let's get to work." Grissom nodded once before heading off with Catherine. Nick slugged the last of his coffee, crushed the Styrofoam cup and tossed it in the general direction of the wastebasket. He cocked one finger in a 'come here' gesture and a trotted after him feeling like a faithful puppy following their owner.

"What do we know about this kidnapping?" I asked as we walked. We put our silver CS cases carefully in the boot of the Tahoe and got in; he looked at me out of the corner of his eye as he pulled out of the parking space.

"Jeep found in the parking lot of supermarket, so far that's it. We'll know more as soon as we get down there." He said. He was so busy concentrating on navigating the traffic that he shut up then and I didn't interrupt him again.

He stopped next to a Taurus, its beacon still flashing and we got out. Police officers stood around and a detective was talking to a man nearby. As soon as he saw us he came right over.

"About time you showed up." He said. Nick shrugged as he hefted his case.

"Sorry, training in the rookie." He said.

"I haven't been a rookie in a long time." I said. The detective glanced at me once then back to Nick, as if expecting something.

"Close enough," Nick smiled at me, letting me know he was kidding.

"Captain Jim Brass meet Phoenix Matthews."

The detective held out a hand and we shook hands.

"That's the husband over there; names Brian Markson, Wife's name is Carla, daughter is Cindy. Says he went back into the store to get something they had forgotten. Wife stayed out here with the daughter. When he came back his wife and daughter were both gone, car doors open. Says that at first he thought his wife had brought their little girl to the bathroom or something, so he waited for a few minutes and when they didn't show up he rang her mobile phone, which was sitting on the passenger seat. He went back into the store had his wife and daughter paged, approximately six minutes later they rang us." Brass said.

"So from the time that he first left them here to the time we got here about forty minutes passed." Nick was obviously thinking out loud.

"He notice anything else missing from the car? Anything wrong?" I asked.

"He didn't say, just that the phone was lying on the seat when he rang the wife. He also said that she doesn't go anywhere without it." He replied.

"You want the inside of the jeep or outside?" Nick asked me.

"Inside." I replied promptly.

"Let me know if you find something important in it." He told me.

"I'll let you know as soon as I find out more." Brass said, heading back in the direction of the husband. I pulled on a pair of latex gloves and took out a flashlight, opening the boot of the jeep I looked inside. Bags filled with groceries, some other household items, nothing out of the ordinary. I took pictures, lightbulb flashing brightly against the blackness of the boot. Then I noticed something else, took a closer picture of this bag in particular. Then took out the thing that was dripping on the bag. I read the front of the carton.

"Vanilla flavour." I mumbled, to myself.

"What did you say?" Nick called from the other side of the jeep.

"Just thinking out loud," I was about to put the carton back in the bag when something else struck me, and I nearly kicked myself for not noticing sooner.

"Hey, Nick, how long you think it would take for ice-cream to melt in this temp?" I called.

"You mean just a little melted or sludgy type melted?" He asked.

"Sludgy type, big carton." I said.

"Probably about two, two and half hours." He replied. I put the ice-cream carton back in the bag and moved forward to the passenger seat, took pictures and went back to the rear right door, the side where the daughter; according to the child safety seat had been. Took yet more pictures, a child soother lay on the floor of the car, the only thing out of order right here. I took my hand of the car door and spotted something out of the corner of my eye, put the camera down and took a closer look at the car door. I knew what it was, but to be safe I took a swab and confirmed what I knew already. I dusted the door handle for prints, found none. Keys still in the ignition I leaned over and turned them just enough. I pressed the window up button on the door handle and slowly the window rose.

"Nick, I think I found that important stuff you mentioned earlier." I said. Looking at the blood smeared window, already taking pictures from different angles. Nick came around and saw the blood, his face didn't change at all, but his voice was hard.

"Did you get the pictures?" He asked. I held up the camera to indicate that I had.

"Whatever happened here happened on the inside and the window was up at the time, no prints on the handle." I said. I took another swab to for a blood test, find out whose blood it was. I bent closer to the floor and the soother that lay on it, picking it up gently in one gloved hand.

"I got blood on the soother." My voice was now as hard as his.

"How long it's been lyin' there is the question." He said. I held it up so he could see it.

"Not that long, it's still got fresh saliva on it." I took another swab of the saliva on the soother and bagged it. My eyes flicked to the husband. _Keep your mind on the job at hand, Phoenix. _I thought. If I let personal feelings get in the way then I could screw up big time.

"Keep looking," Nick broke me out of my reverie. We both went back to work.

"You two got anything?" Brass had rejoined us. I glanced at Nick.

"Blood on the rear right window and the soother on the floor." He said.

As soon as Brass had left we packed up our CS cases and the evidence.

"I'm going to see if I can persuade the husband to give us some DNA." Nick said.

"Our suspect." I added.

"Perhaps, but we don't have any evidence yet." He tossed back over his shoulder.

"Not concrete evidence anyway."

While I stowed our gear, Nick ran off to get the blood and saliva checked. Then he came back and we went to work on the rest of our evidence. We had barely started when his phone rang; he answered it and pulled the phone away from his ear as a voice crowed excitedly over it.

"Our tests are done." He said and we trooped off in the direction of Grissoms office, but stopped just short of it and entering a room.

"Phoenix, meet our resident nerd." Nick said.

"Aww, Nick, I didn't know you cared," a head popped up from behind one the microscopes, his mouth opened to say something else. Then he saw me and his mouth snapped closed so hard he probably chipped a few teeth. I coughed into my hand, trying not to laugh. He came around from behind his microscope.

"Phoenix, that's a weird name." He said.

"You have weird hair, so I guess we're even, but thank you." I smiled sweetly at him.

"Yeah," he cleared his throat and continued to stare at me.

"I believe you had tests for us, Greg." Nick finally said. Just as I was beginning to think that Greg was a statue. His head snapped around and it was like he was only now noticing that I wasn't the only person in the room.

"What?" Greg asked distractedly.

"The tests for us." Nick said.

"Oh yeah," Greg glanced at a some papers on a table nearby.

"We have a match."

"The blood on the car door belongs to Brian Markson?" I asked. Greg didn't say anything, just looked at me. I glanced a little awkwardly at Nick.

"Did I suddenly turn into a painting or something?"

Nick rather than asking Greg to elaborate snatched the papers of the table instead and glanced over them.

"Nope, not identical to each other. Close though, looks like the blood on the window is his daughters and his wife's." He said. I thought that over, my brow wrinkling in concentration as I thought about it for a moment.

"I don't get it, how's both their blood on the same window, on the same swab?" I asked, picking up another piece of paper from the table.

"What the…? You found epithelials in the blood swab as well?"

"Yeah," by the look on his face Greg was getting very animated now.

"And get this, it's not the daughter or the mothers, but it matches-"

"The father." I finished for him. There was a knock on the door and Brass stuck his head in the door.

"I came down here because we just got a call from the hospital on behalf of a Carla Markson. And I just caught the last of what you said and Mr Markson was kind enough to come down with us. Figured you two might like to sit in on the interrogation." He said. Nick looked at me, and I nodded in the affirmative. We went down to the interrogation room with Brass and I took a seat across from Brian Markson, Nick sat next to me and Brass lounged against the window.

"Is there anything you want to tell us, Mr Markson?" Nick asked. Markson looked from Nick's stony face, to mine and his face darkened.

"What the hell is this? My wife and daughter are missing and you're accusing me of doing something to them." He snapped. I leaned my elbows on the edge of the table and opened the file in front of me, sliding the sheets of paper across to him.

"We haven't accused you of anything yet. But if you tell us what happened then it may just be a bit easier on you." Nick said. Markson held up the papers and waved them around.

"What are these supposed to be?" He asked.

"Those are DNA tests. I found blood on the window which was matched to your daughter, which in turn matched the other blood sample on the window to your wife. The mouth swab we took from you matched epithelial cells from the same swab. Care to explain how that happened?" I asked.

"Epi-whats?" He asked.

"Epithelials, skin cells." I explained.

"If you weren't there then how did your skin get mixed in with the blood on the window?"

"It's my car, how do you think they got there!" He snapped. I looked at Nick and he nodded, and I took that as a sign that I should continue.

"You, your wife and daughter come out of the store. Put the groceries in the boot, get ready to leave, but just as you put the keys in the ignition something Cindy does sets you off. You weren't in a good mood to begin with and this is just the last straw. You turn around and hit her, hard enough to splatter blood on the car window. Which makes you even worse, you're about to hit her again and your wife intervenes, putting herself between you and her daughter. Instead of hitting Cindy as you intended to you hit Carla. That's how her blood got on the window as well. But she's close to the window and your hand hits it as well, not hard enough to break it, just hard enough to leave some of your skin there. Am I getting warm?" I asked. His glare was all the answer I needed.

"Your wife isn't that seriously injured and you scream at her to clean the blood of the window because it's messing up your nice clean jeep. While you go back into the store to get away from them or to cool off a little. While you're gone she grabs her daughter and runs. You come back and find them both gone and you really can't believe that she wouldn't do as you tell her to because you've punched it into her so often that if she doesn't do as you tell her she will regret it."

"She does what I tell her because she wants to." He said.

"No, she does what you want because she's terrified of you. It's nothing new to her you hitting her. But when you hit her daughter it's a whole different story."

"They're my family."

"That's right, they are. And Carla is a mother and like most mothers she can take anything you throw at her, but now you've gone and hurt her child and also like most mothers she will do anything to protect her own."

"You don't got nothing on me but those skin cells and it's my car, they're going to be there." He said.

"And we have Carla's statement telling us what you did."

"She wouldn't do that."

"She already has," Brass's phone chose that minute to ring and he spoke into it quietly for a moment, then came over and whispered into my ear.

"And now the charges have changed from assault to assault and murder, Mr Markson."

"I didn't kill anyone!" He said loudly.

"Yes, you did. Your daughter died fifteen minutes ago from injuries sustained from your attack on her."

He stared at me, not believing my words and he sat there as Nick and I stood up to leave the room.

"I was just trying to teach her a lesson." He said quietly. I turned to look back at him.

"She was nine months old, Mr Markson, if she was going to learn any lesson it wasn't going to learned at that age." I said.

"I didn't mean for her to die."

"Perhaps you should have thought of that before you hit her." And I followed Nick out of the room. As soon as he closed the door I looked at him, seeing the same hollow look in his eyes that I felt inside. Justice at the cost of an innocent life is to high a price.

"Nice first case." I said. He shrugged his shoulders.

"It isn't always so bad." He said quietly.

"Hey, you two want to get breakfast? Gris is buying!" Warrick called as he and Sara came into the break room at the end of shift.

"We'll be right there." Nick called back to him.

"How would you mark her out of ten, Nick?" Grissom gestured with his cup of coffee in my direction. Nick looked at me, as if he were actually marking me.

"Eight, maybe even a nine." He replied.

"Hey, I think I earned at least a ten, what do I loose the point for?" I asked, mock indignantly. He smiled boyishly at me.

"Just ask Grissom, no one around here earns ten on the first night; if at all." He leaned across Sara and grabbed the salt shaker.

"Explain something to me."

"Sure," I said.

"You called the husband our suspect and this was just after you searched the jeep. Did you have any evidence or was it just a suspicion?" He asked, shoving a forkful of scrambled egg in his mouth.

"A bit of both actually," I smiled at him over the rim of my mug.

"Wait, wait, back up a bit, when I told you I was going to get a swab from him you called him our suspect."

"Well, mine anyway. You said we didn't have any evidence."

"Yeah, and I vaguely remember you saying that it wasn't concrete evidence, so…" He trailed off.

"So?" I asked.

"So start talking, you either have evidence or you don't have it, can't have it both ways." He said. I put the cup down.

"You remember I asked you how long it would take for ice-cream to melt?" I asked. He nodded in confirmation.

"Well that's because I found a melted carton in one of the grocery bags, the sludgy kind of melted."

"That's what your basing the husband being our suspect on?" He asked, glancing at Grissom, who was looking from Nick to me, just waiting to see what happened.

"Yep," I said proudly.

"Explain to me how you work that one out." He said.

"When I asked you how long it took for the ice-cream to melt what did you say?"

"Two hours," He replied.

"Exactly." I smirked at him.

"Now here's the big one so listen carefully. When we first showed up there, Brass told us the information as related to him by the husband. The husband went into the store, came back out, wife and daughter gone, he rang her phone, no answer because it was on the seat, he waited for a few minutes, and then went into the store had them paged, when no one responded the store called the cops. You did a little quick math in your head, you said that from the time the husband first noticed they were missing to the time we showed up was about forty minutes, right?"

"Yeah, So what? That doesn't give us anything." Nick said.

"Sure it does," I said.

"We showed up forty minutes after they disappeared, went to work no more than five minutes later, right?"

"So what?" He was beginning to look a little confused now. Grissoms face showed me he knew where I was going with this, but Nick had no idea.

"The so what is this. If the wife and daughter disappeared forty minutes before we got there then what happened to the tub of ice-cream that took two hours to melt? Was the husband wondering around the store for the other eighty minutes?" I raised my eyebrows questioningly. Nick sighed and then laughed.

"Why didn't you just tell me that already?" He asked.

"What and take all the fun outta it? Besides aren't you supposed to be a CSI3? Thought you guys were supposed to be just a touch smarter than the rest of us grunts."

"Ouch, you wound me." He held his hand over his heart as if mortally wounded.

"Take Warrick for example," I nodded in the other CSIs direction as if Nick hadn't said anything.

"He seems to know what made me suspicious of the husband and he wasn't even there, he's level 3. He knew what I was suspicious of and he wasn't even there."

"Okay, children, enough." Grissom intervened, but he was smiling.

"Nice work, Phoenix."

I bowed my head in acknowledgement of the compliment and took a bite of toast, it's nice when you get recognised for a job well done.


	2. pt 2

Night Shift

Part 2

_Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not food: frequently, there must be a beverage _Woody Allen.

(A few days after 'NS, part 1')

I changed into a t-shirt in the locker room. Catherine Willows joined me, looked me over.

"You look like you need a good nights sleep." She noted clinically.

"The motel I'm staying in gets a little noisy during the day." I said, putting on a hip holster, checking the handgun and putting it in the holster.

"Still haven't had any luck finding a place to stay?" She asked kindly. I shook my head in the negative.

"Not in my price range." I replied. I paid one hundred dollars a week for the motel room I was staying in at the moment.

"I'll keep an ear out for you; let you know if I hear of anywhere." She said.

"Thanks. You see Warrick yet?" I asked.

"Did someone call my name?" Warrick asked as he strolled through the door.

"Grissom said I have the pleasure of working with you this lovely night." I pulled on a denim jacket.

"In that case you might want to take a look at this." He held a file out to me, which I took and looked it over as we left the locker room.

"Want to take a guess as to how she died?" Warrick asked after giving me a minute to read over file, by this stage we were in the break room.

"Grissom doesn't let me guess." I said, closing the file and handing it back to him. Sara, who was sitting at the table with Nick, snorted a laugh and smiled up at me.

"Indulge me." Warrick said. I nodded as I helped myself to a can of coke from the machine and sat down in one of the chairs.

"You been out to the place yet?" I asked.

"Nope, it just came in, what's in that file is what I got from the cops." He replied.

"Looks like she was strangled, right?" I held out my hand for the file back and I opened it up spreading the contents across the table.

"No ligature marks, no hand marks that they can tell. Her hands weren't tied up or taped. So how does someone get strangled when their hands are free? Unconscious maybe," I was thinking out loud.

"No ligature marks on her neck, a bag over her head?" I looked up at him expectantly and he nodded.

"That's my guess to." He said.

"Guessing? I thought Grissom had banned you from doing that Warrick." Catherine said as she came into the room and closed the door.

"You forget to bring him with you?" Nick asked her. She shook her head.

"No, he's gone out the other end of town to work on something, left this place in my hands." She told us.

"We'll do our best not to make you look bad." Nick grinned at her. Catherine smiled back at him.

"You better not, Nick." She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down.

"So what do we have?"

"Phoenix and I are about to head out to a strangulation vic who wasn't actually strangled." Warrick said.

"And yours truly and Nick are heading over to a casino where one of the maids found a dead guy in the smoking area out back." Sara said.

"And I'll be right here if anyone needs me, assuming of course that I don't get called out as well." Catherine said.

"After you, milady." Warrick held the door open for me. I curtsied to him.

"Thank you, kind sir." I said and walked out the door. I didn't miss the narrowing of Nick's eyes as I did so. _What's wrong with him? _I wondered.

We arrived at the apartment building where the woman; our victim lived. Cases in gloved hands we went right up. The naked woman lay sprawled across the double bed, her face twisted into a grimace.

"How about you take the body first?" Warrick suggested.

"No problem," and I set to work.

A while later he came back.

"Find anything?" I asked over my shoulder.

"Not much. Our Tiffany Ambers was a very tidy person." He said.

"What about you?" He asked. I held up an evidence bag with a plastic zip-loc bag in it.

"Looks like whoever did this to her tried to kill her with this first, but then he had to resort to something else. There are tiny holes all over the bag. Or maybe he just wanted to see her suffer a little before he did kill her." I moved across to the other side of the bed.

"But take a look at this,"

He stood on the other side of the bed and looked down.

"What? I don't see anything." He said.

"Neither did I; until I looked a little closer." I pointed to the marks on her chest, very faint. Then I put my hands on the marks.

"Looks like someone pressed very hard on her chest with their hands, the marks are very faint because he probably resorted to using something else, I'm not sure what."

"What is that?" He pointed a light on one of the hand marks on her.

"I don't know, but…you want me to take another guess?" I asked, looking up at him.

"Knock yourself out." He said.

"Okay, see how you can just see the imprint of the first knuckle of that finger right here. My guess is that our murderer was missing his ring finger of his right hand and it wasn't that recent, because you can actually see where the finger ends."

"Good guess, we'll see if you're right when Doc Robbins takes a look at her. Anything else?" He asked.

"Aside from the fact that she's definitely dead; no. How am I doing so far?" I asked.

"You'll do just fine, Rookie." He smiled at me.

"You're so kind." I said, as I got off the bed.

"So everyone tells me. Are you done here?"

"Got everything I need."

"Then let's head on home to the ranch and see what we've got."

"Sure thing, boss."

I laid out everything on the brightly lit table. I looked over at Warrick as he came in.

"How long did Robbins say it would take?" I asked.

"Few hours. Is this it?" He said.

"Yeah," I said.

"Not much I know, but more info has been found from less."

"Then let's see what we can find here. You bring the sample to Greg?" Warrick looked at me.

"Yeah, he's looking over it as we speak." I spread the photographs out, then the other stuff.

Warrick picked up one of the pictures.

"What's this, right here?" He pointed to a spot on the picture. I shook my head.

"Don't know yet, Greg's still looking at it. But it looked like a piece of ripped cloth, not cotton and not silk that's about all I can tell you."

"Good eyesight," he said.

"Good tools," I corrected, as we started going through the assembled evidence.

"So what's it look like, Doc? What did our girl die from?" Warrick asked looking down at the body on the table. Robbins pointed to her chest.

"I found pieces of the plastic bag in her throat, and a high CO2 level in her blood. But take a look at this," he walked them over to an x-ray light and pushed a chest x-ray into it.

"Cracked and broken ribs." Warrick said.

"Exactly, bruising matches handprints on the body. After that he sat on her chest, she couldn't breathe because of the weight on her." Robbins said, looking at me he continued.

"Looks like your rookie was right in her assessment. There's something else I caught as well. Bloods all in the lower part of her body, buttocks, thighs and feet. Looks like after she was killed she was moved to a sitting position and then back to where you found her." He looked sharply at Warrick.

"Did you find a bath in her home? It looks like that's where she was straight after she died."

"Yeah, spotlessly clean though. We'll head back there and take another look though." Warrick said.

Lights flashed spasmodically, nothing new in Vegas. Unless you happen to see a few police cruisers emitting the lights.

"Good to see you here." Brass said, as Warrick and I got out of the Tahoe.

"What happened?" Warrick asked him.

"Dead woman, found in flat 102, looks like she was strangled, but no marks on her neck. Sound familiar?" Brass put away his notepad. I looked at Warrick, and he looked at me.

"Shit," he muttered. Voicing what I was thinking. I went around the back of the Tahoe and started unloading equipment.

"I'll go take a look at the bath next door," He said. Tiffany Ambers had lived the in the flat next door to our newest victim; Veronica Martins.

"You'll be alright on your own until I get there?"

"I'll do my best not to spill my beer all over the evidence." I told him. He smiled and chuckled a little at that.

"Besides if I need you to come save me, you'll be right next door and able to hear me screaming for help."

"Yeah, yeah, get in there." He said. I saluted smartly and walked carefully into the room, trying not to disturb anything until I had a closer look.

"Hey, the police downstairs said it was okay to come up here so long as I didn't touch nothing." A gruff male voice said from the doorway. I turned in the process of pulling on a pair of gloves. A tall well built man.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"The super; Lorne Geary." He held out his right hand to shake, but I didn't take it.

"What happened to your finger, Mr Geary?" I asked. He gave me a startled look and jerked his hand back as if burned.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be nosey, I guess I'm just a little curious, sir." I apologised.

"Not a problem. How long are you going to be here?" He asked.

"As long as I need to be." I replied.

"Then I better get out of here and let you get to work." And so saying he walked out of the room. A few moments later Warrick came in, silver case in hand.

"Did I just hear you talking to someone?" He asked. I stood up from where I was crouching over a fresh; as of yet, unidentified stain.

"The super, Lorne Geary, tall guy, strong enough to do this," I gestured to the body.

"Yeah, but do you have actual evidence on him,"

"On him? No, not really," I shrugged. Then looked at him and smirked.

"Unless you count the fact that he's missing his right ring finger. As soon as I mentioned it he seemed very eager to leave." I told him. He put down his case next to mine.

"I'll go find Brass and let him know." He said.

"And leave me here all on my own to process this place?" I asked jokingly.

"And tell Catherine what's going on." He continued as if I hadn't said anything. I nodded and went back to the stain on the floor with a swab.

"That was fast," I said as I heard someone coming back into the room.

"Looks the same as our first vic next do-" I was cut off as a bag descended over my head; I struggled briefly, before remembering that would just waste more oxygen. My mind moved into calmness and I reached for the gun holstered at my hip. It had no sooner cleared the holster than a foot kicked it from my grip. _Shit, _I thought. I moved my hands behind me trying to grab my attacker, but my hands closed only on empty air. The calmness that had come over me a moment ago was rapidly disappearing and I was starting to panic. No air to breath, I could feel the bag tightening around my neck, he seemed to be tying it off or something. I could hear nothing from him, whether that was because he wasn't talking or because I was panicking so much I don't know. I tried to pull away from him, but he was stronger than I was, hanging onto me for all he was worth. I could see tiny sparkles flash in my vision…

"Let her go!" Brass's voice, but I couldn't see him through the bag. A gunshot, a grunt and I was released. Fingers scrabbling madly at the bag trying to get it off, but I couldn't find the end of it. Then someone yanked it off and I sucked in sweet air, gasping for breath that had been denied me. Warrick knelt on the floor next to me.

"You okay?" He asked. To busy trying to breathe I nodded in reply.

"Get him out of here." Brass ordered. After a moment I sat up slowly.

"The fun just never ends around here does it?" I asked. I briefly rested my elbows on my knees, letting my hands dangle downward as I looked at Brass.

"Don't think I've ever been so happy to hear your voice, Captain."

"Just doing my job," Brass shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah, well I'm glad you're good at it," I said.

"You sure you're okay?" Warrick asked, his brow knotted in concern.

"Still alive and kicking. Let's get this place done and get out of here." I said.

"No can do. Catherine's on her way over. If something like this happens to a CSI they got to get checked out, standard procedure." He said.

"How did Catherine know to come over?" I asked confused. Warrick picked up my gun, and pulled out the clip.

"Heard a gun go off up here." He explained.

"Least it's good for something other than getting kicked out of my hand." I muttered.

"You want to grab both our cases, Cap?" Warrick asked as he stood up and held a hand out to help me up.

"Sure," Brass said.

"I'm fine," I argued.

"Like I said it's standard procedure. You can try arguing with Catharine about it if you want, but that's probably a lost cause." Warrick said. As he followed behind me out of the room.

The door open, I sat in the front passenger seat of the Tahoe, eyes closed and my head back against the head rest. I heard heels clicking across the ground and opened my eyes.

"How are you feeling?" Catharine asked.

"Fine," like my answer was going to be anything else.

"Listen I told Warrick that I can still work this one. I don't need to see anyone." I told her.

"You still have to go in; Warrick's going to drive you." She said.

"Fine," I was well aware of the fact that I was being less than gracious, but I really didn't care.

"It's just a precaution; don't want you passing out later on or anything." She said.

"I get it." I said quietly if somewhat petulantly. Her lips quirked in a half smile.

"Believe me I understand, I'll do this place and bring in any evidence I find and Warrick and you can go over it." She said. I smiled, just a little.

"Is it that obvious?" I asked.

"It's how I'd feel." Was all she said, before waving to Warrick and nodding to me.

"I'll see you back there."

Warrick got into the driver seat of the Tahoe and looked over at me.

"Ready to go?" He asked.

"No, but it's not like I have a choice." I said a little testily. He said nothing to that just started his impression of Michael Schumacher.

When we finally did get back the shift was almost over, but I still wanted to work on the evidence. Never say that I don't persevere. Unfortunately Grisson had also returned by then, poking his head into the room where Warrick and I were working.

"Phoenix, come with me," he said. I glanced at Warrick, wondering what I had done wrong, but I said nothing. Out in the corridor I turned to Grissom.

"What's up, boss?" I asked.

"My office, now." Was all he said.

He settled himself in his chair and gestured for me to take the seat across from him.

"I heard about what happened. You okay?" He asked. I nearly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Fine, Warrick and Brass showed up and saved my ass." I said.

"I know that. I meant…" he trailed off.

"I know what you meant, Gil." I said quietly. He looked at me closely, his features inscrutable.

"And?" He prompted.

"And what?" I asked.

"Phoenix, you and I both know that this isn't just…" he stopped again. It's very rarely that Gil Grissom is lost for words.

"About some guy trying to kill me? I know that to." I stared at the floor for a long moment.

"You want the truth?" I asked. At his answering nod I continued.

"I thought he was Warrick comin back in. I didn't even know it wasn't until the bag went over my head. I grabbed for my gun, but he kicked it out of my hands. If it hadn't gone off then we wouldn't be havin this conversation right now." My hands clenched into fists and I stared at them. I continued in a quieter voice.

"To be honest I haven't felt so helpless since…you know." I didn't look up at him.

"Yeah, I know." He said.

"Can I go back to work now?" I asked.

"Sure, if you need to talk my doors always open." He said. I walked out and instead of going back to work I went straight to the locker room and sat heavily on one of the benches, leaning back against a locker. I felt more than heard someone sitting down nearby.

"You, okay?" Nick's voice. I nodded without opening my eyes.

"You know sometimes these things happen, it ain't anyone's fault."

"I never said it was." I said.

"That isn't what I mean. Sometimes you just get the bum assignments, y'know what I mean?" He asked.

"Sometimes you just draw a bum hand in the poker of life and I'm getting a little tired of bluffing." I said, opening my eyes and finally looking at him, but I didn't sit up.

"What do you mean by that?" He asked. I shook my head.

"Doesn't matter. What time is it?" The question to put an end to the conversation we had been having.

"Shift's over," he said. Sara came in, followed by Warrick.

"He chew you out?" Warrick asked me.

"Nope," I stood up and opened my locker pulling out the backpack that was stuffed in there.

"Well folks, it's been a real pleasure. Now I gotta go back to my dumpy motel and listen to the neighbours' party all day." I headed for the door practically walking right into Catharine as she came in.

"You're leaving already?" She asked.

"Yeah, got to try and get some sleep before the noise starts." I told her. She looked at Warrick, an eyebrow raised in question.

"You didn't tell her?" She asked him.

"Tell her what? Oh, yeah," he looked at me.

"Heard you were looking for a place to stay. My housemate just moved out last week, looking for a new one, deposit of three hundred, rent's one fifty a week. You interested?"

It didn't take much for me to make up my mind. Even if moving it with another guy was not what I had in mind, I nodded.

"Sure, when can I move in?" I asked.

"Right now if you want." He said. Maybe this day wasn't a total waste after all. Nick had that look on his face again. I probably didn't want to know what his problem was.

"Great," I smiled at him.

"Where's the motel you were staying at?" He asked as we walked out. I gave him directions.

"You got a car?"

I made a face.

"Yeah, but it wouldn't start this morning so I had to get the bus." I replied. He pointed to his car.

"Hop in and we'll go get your stuff." He told me. _Great, a drive with the CSI lunatic, _I thought. But on the upside we got there and back to his; now my place as well, within half an hour.

"Nice place," I said. It was no lie. Warrick owned a house in one of the better suburbs of Vegas. I had also called a tow truck to take my car to a garage, I was seriously considering selling it, it was always breaking down and it cost more to keep it going than it would to buy a new one.

"Thanks," he said, he led me up the stairs carrying one of my backpacks, me carrying the other one. He opened one of the doors.

"And this is your room,"

_And nice bedrooms, _I thought. I tossed my bag in one corner of the room and he dropped the other one on top of it. He brought me on a tour of the house, two bedrooms; ensuite, an upstairs bathroom with a shower and a bath, downstairs bathroom, kitchen, utility and large sitting room. I had already given him a cheque for the deposit and first months rent.

"Want breakfast?" He asked.

"Why not, and then I'm going to get some much needed sleep," I closed my eyes.

"You hear that?" I asked him.

"I don't hear anything." He said on his way to the kitchen.

"That's my point; no noise."

"Yeah, it is pretty quiet around here I guess. I never really noticed before." He was rooting through the fridge and he came out with eggs, bacon and sausage.

"This okay with you?"

"Just so long as I don't have to cook it, or the next thing you'll be doing is calling the fire brigade." I said. Eyebrows raised he looked at me as he broke eggs into a pan.

"You can't cook?" He asked.

"Sure I can cook, I just get easily distracted and then…" I shrugged.

"So what do you usually eat?" He asked.

"Sandwiches."

"Set the table while I do this."

"Point me in the direction of what I need."

A few days; or evening as most people who don't work the night shift would call it, feeling like my usual self just after I wake up. I took a shower and went downstairs. Warrick sat in the sitting room watching the TV and reading a book.

"Morning," he said as I past. I grunted in response and continued on to the kitchen.

"Nick's on his way over," he called after me. I didn't respond to this at all, banging press doors in my search for a cup.

"And here he is now,"

"I'm so happy," I said in an overly sarcastic tone. I heard the front door opening and closing and then Warrick and Nick talking. I got what I was looking for and went back to the sitting room and sat in a large overstuffed chair.

"Good morning, Phoenix," Nick said. I ignored him, as is my early morning practice with everyone.

"Good morning, Nick. Nice to see you," he said in a high falsetto. Warrick stuck his nose back in his book, muttering something about not doing that to me.

"Shut up, Nick," I said rudely.

"That's not very nice nice. What are you drinking?" He asked.

"Coffee," I replied.

"I thought you didn't like coffee." He said. At this stage if looks could kill then Nick would have been a smoking pile of ashes on the carpet.

"I don't like mornings either, but we both try and get along as best we can and not complain too much," I said.

"Too much, yeah right," Warrick muttered. I glared at him and he ducked back behind his book.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"So are we all ready for another night of fun?" Nick asked.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you're to chipper in the morning?" I snapped.

"Just you," he said.

"Nick," Warrick hissed and then louder.

"Nick!"

"What?" Nick asked.

"Please, just sit down and be quiet for half an hour." Warrick told him, his eyes somewhat pleading. Nick finally got the hint and turned his eyes to the TV, watching some mindless gamshow Warrick had on.

Half an hour later I stood up and went into the kitchen to wash up my empty cup. I came back out a moment later.

"Are we ready to go yet?" I asked calmly. Nick gave me a wary look, but Warrick who was by now used to my morning moods stood up immediately and turned off the TV.

"Yeah, and you get lucky this evening because Nick's driving." He said. I smiled at Nick.

"Excellent, we might get there without causing any major accidents tonight." I said. Nick was still looking at me as if I were some alien creature.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"You're happy?" He asked tentatively.

"What kind of a question is that?" I asked confused.

"Well a moment ago you were being…" he stopped.

"A grumpy little bitch?" I asked. He gave a tiny, jerky nod.

"Yeah, I'm like that in the morning. Ask Warrick." I said, nodding in Warrick's direction.

"As I learned much to my horror the first morning after she moved in," Warrick said.

"I already apologised for that," I said.

"I know, I'm just trying to warn Nick," he said.

"Believe me, Nick's learnt his lesson." Nick put the key into the ignition of his car. We didn't get very far before Warrick asked to be let out.

"See you guys later," Warrick slapped the side of the car as he walked off.

"Why do I have a feeling that I'm being set up for something?" I asked. Nick was looking at me out of the corner of his eye, he shrugged his shoulders but I could see him smiling.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" He asked.

"The evidence all points that way," I said. He looked at me as he stopped at red light.

"You're beginning to sound like Grissom." He told me.

"If the shoe fits," I smirked at him knowingly. He laughed a little.

"So what's really goin on? Cos I know when we get there Sara will have made some reason not to show up." I said. The light turned green and we started moving again.

"If Sara doesn't show then it had nothing to do with me." He said. I glanced at him and half smiled.

"You could have just asked you know. I might have even said yes." I told him. He turned to look at me and I could see the blush rising in his face.

"But seeing as you didn't ask, you can drop me off at this corner right here."

Nick was still staring at me and his face fell, as he slowed the car to let me out. I fell back laughing.

"I was kidding, Nick,"

His face lit up again, he was like a little boy who had just been given permission to go wild in a toy store. His face broke into an ear to ear smile.

"There's just one thing I have a problem with,"

"What's that?" He asked, in a tone that suggested he expected me to want to get out again.

"I hate bowling, can we do something else?" I asked. His chuckle was infectious; relief maybe.

"Sure. What do you want to do?"

"There any rollercoaster's around here?"

"I'm sure we can find one somewhere."


	3. pt 3

Night Shift

Part 3

(2-3 weeks after NS, part 2)

"Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner," Greg crowed as soon as Warrick and I entered the lab.

"And to those of us who are psychically challenged that means…?" I said.

"The skin you got from under his nails is a match to your suspect." Greg said.

"Finally," Warrick sighed.

"My thoughts exactly." I said.

"Thanks, Greg, nice work," I smiled at Greg.

"Does that mean that you'll finally say yes?" He asked hopefully. I shook my head and laughed.

"I don't think so, Greg," I told him. Warrick and I headed back out in the corridor and the end of shift meeting that Grissom had ordered. I had also been working here for just over two months and now that we had solved this crime it meant I was on the next step of the ladder.

"What was that all about?" Warrick asked.

"Our lab rat keeps trying to get me to go out with him," I replied.

"You mean Greg has given up on me?" Sara joined us in the break room.

"Either that or he's getting desperate." I said.

"Who is?" Nick asked coming in with Grissom and Catharine.

"No one," I gave Sara and Warrick a warning look, the only two who know that Nick and I had been kind of seeing each other. If by seeing you mean rollercoaster's and going to breakfast/dinner together a couple of times. I was surprised that Grissom hadn't ferreted it out yet, but knowing him it was only a matter of time.

"As most of you know tonight is the night where the Mayor comes around for his yearly visit to tell us how well we're doing," Grissom began.

"And get in our way," Warrick whispered to me.

"Thank you, Warrick," Grissom had ears like a hawk.

"And to see how all the tax dollars are being shamelessly wasted," Nick added. Grissom rolled his eyes and cleared his throat.

"As I was saying," he said pointedly.

"The mayor is coming to visit. Chances are he'll come take a look around shake a few hands and leave within an hour. And we're all going to be on our best behaviour, aren't we, boys?" he gave Nick and Warrick a pointed look. Warrick gave him a small boy kind of scared look.

"You're not gonna look us in the closet until he leaves again are you, daddy?" He asked.

"Only if you call me daddy again, son," Grissom deadpanned.

"We're not going to have to put on our Sunday best are we, boss?" I asked.

"Not unless you want to get them dirty,"

"Thank god, my Sunday best amounts to a clean pair of jeans and an ironed t-shirt," I muttered.

"And I have received yet another complaint from Ecklie about being called a; and I quote verbatim, 'fucking asshole'. Would you like to explain why you called him that?" Grissom was looking down at the table he sat at, but I knew he was talking to me.

"Because Warrick and I were doin overtime yesterday afternoon and had laid the victims clothes out very carefully on a table to look at it properly, maybe find somethin we missed earlier. He and one of his lackeys came in and just dumped stuff on top of the table, not even askin us if it was alright." I explained. All eyes were on me now.

"How did that warrant you calling him what you did?" Grissom asked.

"Because he could have destroyed evidence, valuable evidence and then it would have come back on me and Warrick," I said.

"That's what I said to Ecklie," Grissom said, a hint of a smile on his face.

"Besides it's not like I was far off the mark callin him that anyway," I added. Warrick laughed, turning it into a cough. He had been in the room at the time as well and when Ecklie charged in and dumped his lunch on the table Warrick had stood there staring at Ecklie as though Ecklie were some kind of bug that he was about to step on.

"Try not to call him something like that in the future, he's a little sensitive."

"I noticed that myself." Actually he had stormed from the room shouting all sorts of threats at me.

"It wasn't like he didn't deserve it, Gris," Warrick said.

"I never said he did; just try not to step on his toes unless you can run fast." Grissom said.

"And the last piece of news we have here Warrick and Phoenix have just solved the Compton murder, which means that Phoenix is now a CSI2, and now able to work on her own if she needs to." Grissom dangled an ID badge on the end of a chain in one hand. I bowed my head a little to let him drape it around my neck. He stepped back and nodded a little.

"It suits you," he said.

"Thanks, boss," I smiled at him and leaned back against the wall.

"That's it, boys and girls, go home and get yourselves well rested for the mayors' visit tomorrow," Grissom said.

"Yeah, we're probably gonna need it," Warrick said.

"See you later, boss," I said heading for the door.

"Please stop calling me that, Phoenix," Grissom said.

"Sure thing, boss," I smirked as I pulled the door closed behind me.

"Why do you do that, call him boss all the time?" Sara asked in the locker room.

"Because he is," then I grinned at her.

"Winding him up is just a secondary benefit,"

"Yeah, well someone's gotta do it, may as well be the rookie," she said.

"Not anymore I ain't," I took the ID necklace off and swung it back and forth, before putting it in my pocket.

"Yeah, yeah, come on ladies, let's get this party started," Nick slammed his locker shut.

"We're not disturbing you gentlemen, are we?" Sara asked, in a tone that made it perfectly clear she didn't care.

"Not at all, Sara, but the more time you spend talking means less time for having fun." He told her.

I got into Nick's car with him and Sara went with Warrick. The CSI's actually got together once in a while to have some fun together. This time it was Nick's turn and we were playing poker in his house.

Warrick was already there when Nick eventually pulled into the driveway of his house. Sara looked like she seriously regretted having let him drive.

"You remember to get the beer?" Warrick asked Nick.

"Stashed in the fridge," Nick replied.

"And the crisps and everything else you asked for, except the stripper."

"Damn," Warrick made a show of pretending to look upset.

"No problem, we can always play strip poker," Sara said, hanging her jacket up just inside the door.

"Good idea," Warrick said.

"A plan I like," Nick said, looking me up and down.

"Well I don't, we gonna play strip poker tell me now so I can get a bus home," I said.

"Come on," Warrick groaned. I shook my head adamantly.

"I don't think so," I told him.

"Hey, you never know, you might even like it," Nick said.

"Not gonna happen," I said light-heartedly; or tried to. The thought of actually taking my clothes off in front of anyone was not an appealing idea.

"And you might like what you see," Nick murmured in my ear. I almost jumped a mile; I hadn't realised that he was that close.

"Either we play ordinary poker, some other game, but I'm not playin strip poker or strip anything else," just to make sure my point was clear I turned to look at him.

"What are you afraid of?" He asked.

"Nothing, I just don't want to play that. Since when is that a crime?" I asked waspishly.

"It's not, just a change from the norm, what's the big deal?" He asked. Warrick glanced at Sara and nodded in the direction of the kitchen and the two of them went in there, closing the door behind them. I took off my denim jacket, revealing the long sleeved t-shirt I wore underneath.

"The big deal is that I don't want to, is that a problem? Because if it is the bus will be coming soon and I don't want to miss it," actually I had no idea when the bus was coming.

"Hey, hey calm down. You might have fun, have you ever played strip poker before?" He asked.

"No," I admitted.

"How do you know that you won't like it unless you try it?" He asked reasonably.

"Believe me I know I won't like it," I snapped.

"So you don't even want to give it a go?"

"I said no, Nick,"

"Okay, okay, I was just asking is all, no need to bite my head off,"

"Then don't fucking ask," I growled. His eyes widened and I understood why; aside from yesterday with Ecklie it was very rare that I used language.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"If I don't want to do somethin then I ain't doin it, Nick, so quit trying to persuade me cos it ain't gonna happen."

"I'm not, ordinary poker's fine," he was looking at me closely. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down a bit.

"Come on," he held out a hand to me and after a moments hesitation I took it and he pulled me into the kitchen.

"Guys," he said to Sara and Warrick.

"We're playing ordinary poker."

"Aw man I was hoping to see Sara and Phoe-" Warrick was cut off by a well placed elbow to his stomach by Sara. She smiled at us.

"No, problem," she said. Warrick just grunted as he took a swig of his beer.

After that I think we all calmed down a little, except Nick, he never got all that upset to begin with. Things went from good to better. Except for the fact that I suck at poker, but other than that I had fun. At one stage I went to the sitting room to take a cigarette break away from those who didn't smoke. Next thing I know I jerk awake with a start. Someone, presumably Nick has thrown a light blanket over me while I slept and more than two hours have gone past.

"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty," Nick's leaning against the doorframe.

"Yeah," I blinked sleepily, wondering how the hell I had managed to let myself fall asleep.

"Yeah, where's Warrick?"

"He and Sara went home over an hour ago," Nick replied.

"Dammit," I muttered. I stand up and look down, and then back up at him.

"Where are my shoes?" I asked him. He pointed under the coffee table with one hand and I pull them on as fast as I can.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Nick's voice was tinged with concern.

"Nothing, nothing. I gotta go," and so saying I spun around, whacked my shin off the coffee table and limped to the door.

"Phoenix, are you okay?" He was following me. I nodded jerkily.

"Fine, I really have to go home. I need to get some sleep before I head in tonight, you know how it is." I stumbled backward trying to get away from him. This only seemed to make him more concerned and confused.

"There's no problem with you sleeping here if you want, that bus don't come by for at least another half hour." He said.

"I…uh…could probably do with the sun," my excuses were beginning to sound lame now, even to me.

"Then let me at least drive you," He reached out to grab his car keys.

"No, I'm fine. Thanks Nick. I'll see you later." And I practically ran down his driveway to get away from him.

I got to the bus stop, questioning how I could have let myself fall asleep at Nick's, of all places to fall asleep why did it have to be there. And when I woke up I had acted like an idiot, tripping all over myself to get away from him and he had done nothing to me. Right now Nick was probably thinking that I was an idiot as well.

I closed the door quietly behind me. Warrick was sitting watching TV when I came in.

"Nick just called for you; he asked that you ring him when you came in." He told me. I waved dismissively with my hand as I went upstairs.

"I'll talk to him later," I said.

"He not quite what you expected?" He asked.

"Fuck off, Warrick," I snapped and walked even faster. Slamming my bedroom door after me. And sank to the floor leaning against the door. _Shit, SHIT! _ I slammed my hand against the wall. _What the hell is wrong with you? _I asked myself silently. I hadn't meant to take my bad mood out on Warrick; he was just a convenient, if innocent bystander.

When I came into work that night, Warrick was in the locker room. He glanced up as I came in.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," I paused.

"Listen I'm sorry about earlier, didn't mean to snap at you."

He nodded, his eyes narrowed.

"Don't worry about it," he said.

"What happened?" He asked. I took a moment to think of an answer, and then I laughed, somewhat derisively.

"It's a long story. If you have a few hours free some time, I might tell you." I said. I opened my locker and took out my 'work' t-shirt, another long sleeved t-shirt and pulled it on. When I turned around Warrick was gone.

"Glad you could join us, Phoenix." Grissom said, not even looking up at me as I came into the start of shift meeting.

"Sorry," I muttered as I took a seat next to Sara.

"Sara, Catharine, you get the Paulson case." He slid a folder down the table to Catharine and another one to Sara.

"Phoenix, Nick, you're both going to the school." He slid more folders down the table. Figures he'd make me work with Nick today. That's the way my luck goes.

"Warrick I need your help in my office with a little experiment," Grissom finally looked up.

"Any questions?" There was silence all around.

"Then go have some fun."

"What happened earlier?" Nick caught up to me in the corridor. It was inevitable I guess as we were working together for the whole night.

"Nothing, I just had to get home," I said.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Fine," I replied woodenly. He sighed and apparently decided to let it go.

At the school it was no different, he'd ask me something and I'd reply automatically.

"So what do you think happened here?" He asked eventually after a few hours of taking a look around, collecting evidence, taking pictures and all those other things you do at crime scenes.

"I think a guy was murdered," I said quietly.

"Dammit…!" He sounded like he was grinding his teeth together.

"What?" I asked.

"What do you think?" He snapped irritably.

"You, you're so…so irritating. I ask you something and it's like I'm not even here, you don't have to act like you're working all the time!"

"We are working," I stated calmly.

"See there you go again. Can't you at least look at me when we're talking!" Judging by his tone he was barely keeping his temper in check. I finally looked up at him from my kneeling position on the floor of the gym.

"What?" I asked again.

"Talk to me. Tell me what it is I've done wrong, because I honestly have no idea." He said.

"What makes you think you did something wrong?" I asked him.

"Oh, I don't know, perhaps it's the way you've been treating me tonight, like I'm not even good enough to spit on or maybe it's the way you've been ignoring me." He said angrily.

"Well, you haven't done anything wrong." I said.

"Then why the hell are you treating me like this!" His voice bounced off the walls.

"I'm not treating you any differently than I usually would." I said, going back to my work.

"Yes you are," he grabbed my shoulder and I jerked away from him like he had punched me.

"Don't touch me!" I snarled.

"Or what! Don't touch you or maybe you'll treat worse than you already are? That would be kinda difficult, don't you think!" He growled. I stared at him for a moment and then I spun on my heel ran out of the gym. I was glad when he didn't follow me; I sat outside for a long time before driving back to CSI HQ in the Tahoe. I don't know why I went back there, but I guess there are no coincidences. I was going to go into the locker room, grab my stuff and leave. Forever. But Grissom saw me.

"I thought you and Nick were working the high school?" He said.

"We were," I said shortly.

"So what happened? You forget something?" He asked.

"Yeah, I forgot about me and why…" I leaned my head against the cool wall, closed my eyes and took a moment to calm down.

"I'm not feeling so good; you're going to have to send someone else to help Nick." I told him.

"My office," he gestured for me to go before him, as if afraid I might run off. Warrick was leaning over a vat of…something. He looked up as we came in.

"Warrick, can you go help Nick, please."

"Sure, Gris," Warrick said and walked out.

"Take a seat," Grissom said.

"Look, I just need to take a rest for a while." I said.

"No, what you need to do is talk. So start talking." He said. I sat heavily in one of the chairs.

"I can't do this. I thought I could, but I can't." I stared at the floor.

"Why do you say that? From what I've seen you and Nick seem to be getting on well." Damn, Grissom was smart.

"Yeah, well…" a sigh escaped my lips.

"Last night Warrick, Sara, Nick and me were going to play poker. Sara suggested that we try strip poker, I didn't much like that idea because of…you know," I shrugged. Grissom knew, he knew only to well. Twenty years ago he and Tracy had to take pictures. Pictures that were burned permanently into his mind.

"I told him I wasn't going to play that, we argued. I argued," I corrected. He nodded imperceptibly.

"Then I fell asleep on his couch. When I woke up Sara and Warrick were gone. He told me I could sleep there and I know he didn't mean anything but just sleep…I just…I freaked and he didn't even do anything to me." I stopped talking. My foot rattled incessantly against the floor.

"So what happened today?" Grissom asked.

"Nothing happened. I just…" I took a deep breath and started over.

"He wanted to know what it was that he had done wrong, I told him nothing, because, you know, he hadn't. But I don't know…I mean it's not like I went out of my way to be that way. I guess it's just second nature. I'm afraid…" I broke off and stared into space.

"Afraid of what?" He asked gently.

"Afraid of getting close to anyone, because then they'll know stuff about me and they'll tell everyone else." I said. Finally admitting to myself that I was afraid.

"Then why don't you tell him that?" Grissom asked. I laughed humourlessly and shook my head.

"Didn't you just hear what I said! If I tell him then it's all over," I said.

"I don't know about that, maybe he'll surprise you,"

"I can't," my hands clenched the armrests; with some effort I removed my fingernails from the chair, instead leaning my elbows on my thighs. Then a thought struck me.

"You could tell him,"

"That isn't my place. It's yours." He said.

"Gil…"

"I'm serious, Phoenix. What happened to you was bad; yes, and there are bad people out there. But there are good people as well and Nick's one of them. I have this feeling that he'll be more understanding than you think." He leaned against the front of his desk and looked right at me.

"That's not how I've experienced it," I said.

"Really? Maybe you just talked to the wrong people," he said.

"Yeah, and that ends now. I can't tell Nick, I can't tell anyone." I whispered the last part.

"That's your choice, but you still have to work with him. I want you to go back to the school and send Warrick back to me." He said with finality. _Bastard,_ I thought.

"Fine, but I'm not telling him,"

"Like I said; that is your choice."

I walked out of his office, feeling no better than when I had walked in.

"Warrick, Grissom wants you to go back in," I said as I came into the gym. Warrick didn't say anything this time as he left.

"Find anything new?" I asked Nick. Grissom was right I would have to work with him and that meant having a little professional courtesy.

"Yeah, I think I found the murder weapon," He held up a baseball bat, smeared with blood.

"Any suspects?" I asked.

"Brass is talking to them now," he said stiffly.

"I'll go see if I can find out anything," I picked up my case as I headed in the direction of the canteen and where Brass was questioning anyone present at the time the body was found.

"What do you have?" I asked Brass as I came in.

"Best friend who found the body is sitting over there, a fifteen year old girl over there, she seems to upset to talk much and the coach." He pointed at each of them in turn.

"Okay," I went over to the best friend but spotted something on my way there and took a detour in the direction of the girl. She looked up as I came over.

"Hello, I'm Phoenix Matthews from the crime lab," I introduced myself.

"Missy Parker," she wiped at her tear streaked face with a tissue.

"Are those the clothes you've been wearing all night?" I asked her.

"Y-yes, why?"

"Because you have blood spatters on your arm that just stop when it hits your sleeve, that's why." I waved for Brass to come over and pointed out the blood to him.

"It happened when I hit him," I glanced at Brass.

"You might want to get Nick." A moment later he returned with Nick. I was taking a swab of the blood spatters on her arm. By then Brass had also called someone to come sit with her while we interviewed her. Her parents were out of town, so it was a court appointed representative who came. Brass sent the coach and best friend; whose parents had just arrived, home.

"What did you hit him with?" I asked.

"A baseball bat and he fell to the floor," she giggled a little.

"Serves him right, when I he saw me coming at him he started laughing, but I made him stop," she giggled again.

"When I left he wasn't laughing at me. He isn't going to laugh at me ever again,"

"Where are the clothes you were wearing, Missy?" I asked.

"In my bag," she touched her foot off the bag on the floor, I passed it over to Nick, who unzipped it and pulled out Missy's blood spattered clothes.

"Why did you hit him?" Brass asked. Missy stopped giggling, her eyes were deadly serious now and she had almost a fearful look in them.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

"Do I have to say while they're here?" She whispered, she nodded at Brass and Nick.

"I'm afraid so. What made you do that to him?" I asked. She looked at the floor and mumbled something that I didn't quite catch.

"I didn't hear that, what did you say?"

"The first time he came after me in the bathroom, just after basketball practice. He's seventeen and he helps the coach teach us, see. There was no one else in the bathroom when he came in and he…" she looked again at Brass and Nick.

"Can't I just talk to you?" She asked me. I shook my head.

"Captain Brass and CSI Stokes are professionals, Missy. They're just doin their jobs. Tell me what happened in the bathroom."

"He was touching me and he wouldn't stop, I asked him to, but then he…" a tear leaked out the corner of her eye.

"He…raped me, he said if I told anyone then he'd kill me and he kept doing it, almost every time we had practice. I told my mom that I didn't want to come anymore, but she said I have to. Every Thursday I come down here and he'd…" she broke down then.

"How come you didn't tell anyone?" Nick asked from behind me.

"He told me not to and I can't…can't tell anyone, what will they think of me?" She said.

"Officer," Brass gestured to a female officer. I didn't even see her go, just sat on the bench staring into space.

_Is it that I can't tell anyone because I'm afraid of what they'll think of me if they know? Or…_I thought. I looked up at Nick, who was putting the bloodied clothes into evidence bags.

"We need to talk," I said to him.

"About what?" He didn't even look at me.

"About why I've been so bitchy to you," I said honestly. Now he did look at me, eyes curious, after a moment he nodded.

"Shift's almost over, you want to get a coffee somewhere when we finish?" He asked. The way I'd been treating him I half expected him to stay as far away from me as he could.

"Sounds good," I said. _Actually it sounds like a nightmare, _I thought to myself.

"Ready to go get breakfast?" Warrick asked. A Friday morning tradition amongst the CSI's.

"Where you going?" I asked. Nick looked at me sharply.

"Dieter's," Warrick said.

"Nah, I gotta do something else. I'll see you later." I said.

"What was that about?" Nick asked as we walked down the corridor.

"Wanted to make sure we didn't end up in the same restaurant," I shrugged. He held the door open for me.

"Where do you want to go?" He asked.

"Somewhere quiet," I said.

"Want to come over to my place?" He asked. I hesitated for a heartbeat. _If you're gonna trust him now's the time, _I thought.

"Sure," I said.

He opened the front door of his house.

"Take a seat," he said.

"Tea or coffee?"

"Tea, please," I said quietly.

A moment later he was back with two steaming mugs, he set one in front of me and settled himself on a chair, looking at me expectantly. He held the mug in both hands and breathed in the steam rising from the tea. Gods, now that I was here I was beginning to have second thoughts.

"I ever tell you I met Grissom when I was younger?" I asked. I had to start somewhere.

"No," he said.

"My uncle had been murdered. I was seven. My mother died when I was about four and I lived with alone with my father," I put the cup down, my hands had started shaking and I was sloshing tea all over the floor.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"Don't worry about it, I'll clean it up in a minutes," he told me. I nodded once.

"It was Grissoms first case; my uncles' murder. And then; like now, he don't stop digging till he gets the truth. You mind if I smoke?" I asked. He shook his head and I took out a packet of rolling tobacco, but my hands were still shaking so much I couldn't roll any. I took out a cigarette box; that I kept just in case. Stuck one in my mouth and lit the wrong end.

"Shit," I muttered. All this time he didn't say anything, just waited. When I eventually managed to get one lit properly I continued.

"Anyway, Grissom thought my father had killed my uncle. He was right. I was after telling my uncle something that my father didn't like and he killed him because of it." I took a long drag from the cigarette.

"What my father did to me. That's why I think he killed my mother, cos she found out and once she was dead I became his sole property and he could use me for whatever he wanted." I crushed out the cigarette.

"What did he do?" Nick asked his voice was gentle for the first time all day.

"Punch bag, ashtray, sex toy. You name it, he did it." I looked at him and kept looking at him as I continued talking.

"I've only ever told three people, my Uncle Robbie and my father murdered him because Uncle Robbie said he'd take care of it. Then after Robbie was killed I told Grissom and my father went to jail. Third person I told was a person that I at the time considered to be a very close friend and she told everyone else. After that…" I spread my hands and smiled humourlessly.

"Needless to say I have trust issues. Four people now, I guess." I lit another cigarette.

"My real name is Phoenix Benning. When I applied for college I did so under the surname of Matthews; my mothers maiden name. I've kept it ever since. Figure my father don't deserve to have a kid with his name."

"Why are you only telling me this now?" Nick asked, and I knew he wasn't trying to be cruel.

"It's always gonna be there no matter what I do. Gotta stop running sometime and now's as good a time as any." I replied.

"Yeah, but I mean, why not earlier?" He asked.

"Like I said, I have a problem with trusting people."

"So why tell me?"

"I don't want you thinking that I hate you. Because I don't, I actully like you and whatever else you deserve to know the truth."

"Thank you,"

"What for?"

"Trusting me, I know it can't have been easy. Someone did the same to me once,"

"Who?" I asked.

"A babysitter," he replied. He sat forward and covered my hand with his. I wanted to pull away from him, but another part of me made me leave my hand right where it was.

"That's why I didn't want to play strip poker last night, more because of the scars that I have than anything else, I think." I pulled up one of my sleeves, for the first time in so long revealing to someone the scars that were there. He ran a finger along one of the longer scars.

"They're not so bad," he said.

"Maybe, I'm just used to not havin anyone seein them." I yawned hugely. After what happened yesterday I hadn't gotten much sleep and the day before that I had worked a double shift so I hadn't slept in over forty eight hours, except for my nap on Nick's couch yesterday.

"You want a lift home?" He asked. _Just ask him, the worst he can say is no, _I told myself.

"You mind if I sleep on your couch?" I asked.

"There's a bed upstairs that's more comfortable," he said. I stared at him. He shook his head smiling a little.

"Spare bedroom; made up and all,"

I smiled back at him and nodded.

"That's fine, thanks Nick," I said.

"Right this way," he stood and helped me to my feet, leading me up the stairs and showing me the spare room.

"Hang on, be right back," he hurried off and came back with an oversized t-shirt, obviously for sleeping in.

"Thanks," I said.

"Sleep well," he pulled out the door out behind him. I stripped down, just dropping my clothes on the floor in a pile and pulled on the t-shirt; crawling beneath the covers I lay awake staring at the ceiling for a few minutes before sleep took me.

"Wake up!" Someone was shaking me awake.

"What?" I said groggily, I cracked open sleepy eyes.

"I think you were having a nightmare," Nick asked. He stood next to the bed in a t-shirt and a pair of boxers.

"Mhmm," I mumbled groggily.

"Sorry, meant to tell you bout that. Have nightmares sometimes. Not your average run of the mill nightmares where you're falling off a cliff or something." I said. His face was wrinkled in concern.

"You okay now?" He asked. I nodded, pulling the covers up to my chin.

"Yeah, thanks for waking me," I said.

"No problem," He said. Actually I'd probably scared the hell out of him. The neighbours probably thought that someone was being murdered in here. He headed back for the door.

"You know there's enough room for two in this bed," I said. He looked back at me, a strange look on his face.

"You sure that's a good idea?" He asked.

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't think so," I said. He stood by the door hesitantly then came back, lifted the covers and crawled under with me. At first if seemed as if he were almost afraid to touch me, until I curled against him that is at which stage he wrapped his arms around me tightly. I don't think I had anymore nightmares that night; or day. Nick didn't wake me up anyway.


	4. pt 4

Night Shift

Part 4

Warning: Sexual scenes in this chapter,

(2 week after NS, part 3)

"Phoenix, I need your help on a new case," Catharine said as soon as I came in that night. I had just come in for work that night and I figured that I was the first one in after her.

"Let me get my case," I said.

"What's up?" I asked when I rejoined her. She walked me back out the door and we got into one of the Tahoe's'.

"A call came in just as I arrived," she paused as she drove out of the parking lot of the CSI HQ.

"Police were called to a disturbance in a house. Neighbour said he heard gunshots." She pulled the Tahoe in behind an unmarked police car.

"How many?" I asked.

"Dispatch didn't say," she replied. A young detective that I didn't recognise came over.

"What have we got?" Catharine asked him. Just then her mobile phone rang and she answered it.

"I'll head on in and get to work," I told her. She nodded distractedly.

Inside the house was dark; I took out a flashlight and turned it on. The front door opened straight into the sitting room. I moved further into the house. The kitchen; a shattered coke bottle lay on the floor next to a body of a teenager; she looked to be about sixteen or seventeen and her face was marred only by the blood that spattered her from a fatal neck wound. Moving onward I went upstairs and into the bathroom; a man lay slumped in the bathtub, fully clothed in a suit and tie and his head was pretty much gone. I backed out of the room and into a bedroom close by; nothing. In the master bedroom a woman lay on the bed, as if the killer had come upon her while she was sleeping. In the next room I found something though. Under the bed a boy; eight maybe and he held a small baby in his dead arms. I leaned in closer.

"Is it okay now?" The boys' voice was barely whispered. I fell backwards with a small cry.

"Yeah, I'm Phoenix Matthews, I work for the police," he probably wouldn't know what a CSI was. The baby let out a small cry.

"What's your name?"

"Tommy and this is Gillian," he held up the baby.

"Were you hurt?" I asked. He shook his head.

"No, daddy said to come in here and hide with Gillian." He held the baby close, still not sure whether I was the one who had killed his family.

"Well, your daddy was right," probably the only reason Tommy and his baby sister were still alive.

"You want to give me Gillian and we'll go outside?" I asked. His eyes darted fearfully around. Eventually he gave me his sister and crawled out from under the bed.

"Hey, honey," I crooned to the baby softly as I held her close and stood up.

"Come on, Tommy,"

We made our way back down the hallway of the house.

"Daddy!" Tommy yelled as we passed the bathroom. I crouched down to eyelevel.

"Tommy, I need you to come with me," I said.

"But what about daddy?" He asked.

"We'll take care of your daddy, okay?" I said. He glanced back towards the bathroom and then buried his face in my thigh. His small hand snaked into my gloved one. We went down the stairs. I let his hand go for a moment to open the front door and stepped out into the brightly flashing lights. Catharine was on her way up the front walk and she stopped when she saw me coming out the front door with Tommy and Gillian. I went right down to her. Tommy was hiding behind me, still clutching my hand like a lifeline.

"Catharine this is Tommy and his baby sister Gillian," Tommy peeked out from behind me and looked up at her.

"Tommy this is my friend Catharine,"

Catharine recovered quickly and smiled down at him.

"Hello, Tommy," she said. Tommy ducked back behind me.

"He's a little nervous,"

She nodded and gestured to the paramedics who had just arrived. They joined us.

"Tommy, I want you to go with them," I said to the small boy. He stared up and me and shook his head stubbornly, squeezing my hand tighter. I passed the baby to one of the paramedics and crouched down to him again.

"It's alright; they'll look after you at the hospital,"

"Can't you come as well?" He asked. I shook my head and smiled sadly.

"I'm sorry, Tommy, I have to help Catharine here,"

"But-" his lip was trembling.

"It's alright," Catharine said.

"I'll call Grissom and get someone else down here,"

"You sure?" I asked her. She nodded and I walked with Tommy to the ambulance. Got him inside.

"Listen, Tommy, I'll be right back. I just need to talk to Catharine for a minute, okay?"

After a moment he let me go and nodded. I hurried back to Catharine, who was still talking on the phone to Grissom.

"Grissom's sending Sara and Nick," she said.

"Okay, I found the teenage daughter in the kitchen; broken coke bottle nearby, there's blood on it I don't think it's hers, to far away from the body." I said.

"She hit her attacker," Catharine said.

"That's what I think, her throat was slashed. I have theories on what happened with her, but…" I shrugged.

"Upstairs bathroom, father in bathtub shot in the head. Master bedroom; mother in bed, numerous different pill bottles on the bedside cabinet. There are two other bedrooms I didn't check. Bedroom next to the bathroom is empty; bedroom across the hall is where I found Tommy hiding under his bed with the baby."

"We're ready to move here," one of the paramedics called.

"You'd better join Tommy," Catharine told me.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," I said.

I stood next to the bed as the doctor went over Tommy, just to be certain that he wasn't injured. Tommy had refused to let me go, during all this and he also refused to let his sister be taken out of his eyesight.

"Daddy, told me to take care of her," he had told me. A big responsibility for a child, but he was determined that she would not get hurt if he could stop it.

"CSI Matthews," a woman came into the room.

"That's me," I said.

"I'm Carol Hanson, the social worker," she said.

"Is this Thomas and Gillian Grayson?" She asked, looking over a file.

"Tommy and Gillian, yes," I replied, I turned back to Tommy.

"Tommy, this is Ms Hanson, she's going to take you somewhere for tonight."

"But I thought you were going to stay with me," he said.

"I can't, it's Ms Hanson's job to take care of you now. My job is to find out what happened at your house tonight, so I have to go back there." I told him. He looked at Carol Hanson, who smiled back at him. A nice social worker, next thing you know there'll be flying pigs. After a moment he looked back at me and nodded.

"A-alright," he said quietly. I looked at the social worker and she moved over to pick up the baby. I headed for the door.

"Find out who hurt daddy," Tommy's voice stopped me. I turned and looked back at him; his face was deadly earnest; I hadn't told him that his mother and sister were dead as well.

"I promise I will," I said and left to go back to the crime scene.

I met Sara outside the house taking photographs of anything she could find that would show how the killer had entered the house. She pointed out a small footprint in the soil under one broken window, I crouched down and looked at it and then up at the broken window.

"To small?" I asked.

"Looks to be, but you know Grissom, if we don't bag and tag everything in proper order then…"

"They take away the bodies yet?"

"Nope, Catharine's in the kitchen with the daughter, Nick's upstairs with the father." She replied, putting down her camera and getting ready to cast the footprint.

"Looks like I get the mother then," I said. I went into the house and upstairs on the way to the master bedroom. In the bathroom I saw Nick look up as I walked past.

"Hey, Phoenix," he said.

"Did anyone else go into the mother yet?" I asked. He shook his head, gesturing to the father in the bathtub.

"Been keepin him company all night. How's the kid doin?" He asked.

"Upset, naturally. He doesn't know that his mother and sister are dead yet. Social workers after takin him and his sister to a home for the night." I told him.

"I'm gonna get to work in there,"

In the master bedroom all was the same as the last time I had been in here. I turned on the lights and looked around; camera in hand I took pictures of everything. Including the pill bottles on the nightstand, bagging each bottle.

"Find anything?" Catharine stood in the doorway with Nick just behind her.

"Mother was shot in the chest, take a look at these." I opened one of the envelopes with the pill bottle in it. Catharine held it up to the light, reading the label.

"Sleeping pills. Yeah and the prescription date is yesterday. She was supposed to take two, but four of them are missing." I put away the rest of the envelopes.

"So the killer comes in, shoots her and she never even wakes up," Catharine murmured.

"Yeah, her whole families getting hunted and killed in their own house and mommy's in lala land." I said as I moved past her and into the bedroom where I had found Tommy under his bed.

"You know you're taking this a little personally," Catharine had followed me in, she moved towards the closet in the far corner. Nick went to the computer at the other side. I crouched by the bed.

"No, I'm trying to figure out what happened and that's all," I said.

"Don't let it get under your skin," she said.

"To late," I muttered. Something shiny near the top leg of the bed caught my eye.

"I got a bullet here," I picked it up carefully, as Catharine and joined me. I held it up for them to see. I slid it into an envelope.

"Let's see if it matches any that we pull from the bodies," Nick said.

"It will," I said.

"Don't be so hasty to jump to conclusions," Catharine said.

"Take a look around you Catharine; this is a kids room, probably Tommy's. You got toys, a computer. What would a gun be doing in here?" I asked.

"Sara find out anything?" Nick asked me.

"She found a footprint outside and a broken window, looks to small to get in through though," I said.

"And it doesn't look like the killer broke in through the front or the back door,"

"What do you think happened here?" Catharine asked me.

"Guessing games again?" I asked rhetorically.

"Okay, father comes home late from work,

_&&&&&&&&&_

_Thomas Sanderson went into the kitchen, he was late home from work again; Sarah was not going to be happy. He turns to go upstairs and find his wife so he can apologise for his lateness, that's when he sees his daughter on the other side of the breakfast bar. He goes over to her, checks to see if she's still alive, but she's already gone. He turns and races up the stairs to make sure the rest of his family is alright. He goes to the master bedroom first, his wife and daughter. Sarah's already dead, but Gillian is screaming in her cot, the gunshot having woken her up. He snatches her up, and hurries back towards the stairs, thinking that his son is dead as well, he has to get his daughter to safety. Tommy comes out of his room and at the same time the killer comes back upstairs, he killed the mother first and went downstairs when he heard Laurie coming in. Now Thomas Sanderson has a problem; to get his son and daughter to safety he has to get down those stairs, but the murderer's in the way. He gives Gillian to Tommy and tells Tommy to hide. Tommy goes into his room and crawls under the bed. He hears the gun go off a second time and he knows his father has been killed. Now the killer comes into Tommy's bedroom to finish off the job. He points the gun at Tommy; pulls the trigger, the gun jams. The killer tried to fix the gun, a bullet falls out near the bed, and it goes unnoticed. A few seconds later the gun is ready to be used again. In the distance the murderer can hear sirens, someone's called the cops. He can't finish the job, he leaves the house before the police arrive, perhaps blending in with the crowd that's gathered outside._

_&&&&&&&&&_

"Bring it in?" Nick asked.

"We bring it in," Catharine confirmed

I sat in the break room eating a sandwich and drinking a can of coke when Greg came in.

"Where's Catharine?" He asked.

"Down in the morgue with Nick and Doc Robbins," I said after swallowing.

"Well I got work to do for Warrick and Grissom. Can I leave these here with you?" He asked. I nodded my consent; he put them down and left the room. I switched the sandwich to my other hand and pulled the folder towards me. I gave it a cursory glance, and the can of coke stopped in midair.

I had taken a look at the markings on a bullet earlier and taken pictures of it, adding them all to the case file. I shot to my feet and was out the door, lunch; if that's what you can call a three am meal, forgotten about.

"Greg!"

"Holy…! What?" Greg jumped a mile.

"Where's Warrick and Grissom?" I asked. As far as I knew they were still out with Brass doing the rounds. Grissom and Warrick had taken a case last the night before that they were still working on.

"I don't know, in his office maybe," Greg shrugged and went back to work. I took out my phone and dialled Catharine's number.

"You better get up here and bring Nick as well," I said. Then I thought of something else.

"Did Robbins find any bullets in the bodies?"

"Good bring them as well," I went over to the microscope. I hung up and dialled again, the phone was engaged so I had to dial another number.

"Warrick grab Grissom and bring him in," I said.

"I don't care if it is, this is more important. Just get him and get in here ASAP." I snapped.

"You got the bullet from Grissom's case?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I'm still working on it," Greg replied.

"Give it to me," he didn't argue with me just handed it over. I slid it under the microscope and put the one that I had picked up from the floor of the bedroom. Sara was so busy at the computer trying to match the print that I had found on the bullet that she didn't even seem to notice what was going on.

"Uh, oh," I muttered.

"Uh, oh, what?" Catharine asked as she and Nick entered. Instead of answering I held out my hand.

"Give me the bullet," I said.

"Phoenix-" Catharine began.

"Just give it to me. Warrick and Grissom are on their way in." I said as I removed the bedroom bullet and replaced it with the one that Catharine gave me. I turned it slowly.

"Oh, shit,"

"What is it?" Nick asked. I stepped back and gestured to the microscope.

"Take a look for yourself," I said. He bent over it, looking through the eyepieces.

"You found another matching bullet," he said letting Catharine take a look. The door opened again and Grissom and Warrick came in.

"So what's the emergency?" Warrick asked.

"Phoenix found matching bullets from the family murder we were at tonight," Nick replied.

"And we're here for that…why exactly?" Warrick asked.

"It matches the bullet found in your vic from last night," I said.

"And…it matches the bullets found at our murder from tonight. Different murders, same suspect." I finished.

"Or at the least the same gun was used. Break room, now," Grissom ordered.

I sat down at the table and grabbed my half eaten sandwich.

"Catharine, bring me up to speed on what you've found," Grissom said. Catharine started talking, Grissom started listening and I started eating.

"Phoenix!" Grissom said sharply. I jumped slightly and nearly choked on my mouthful of sandwich.

"What?" I asked probably showing him a mouthful of mashed bread, jam and peanut butter.

"I asked you how you recognised the bullet from our case," he said.

"Uh…" I glanced at Warrick.

"She was yesterday's spare wheel, I asked her to take a look at our bullet for me." Warrick told Grissom. The spare wheel was what we called the person who stayed in the CSI HQ for the night to help any of the active CSI's if they need help.

"Didn't find any matches to it in the database either," I added.

"So now we have four dead bodies, bullets, but no gun," Grissom said. No one said anything.

"And a connection," I said after a moment.

"To what?" Grissom asked me.

"Well, there must be a connection between your vic and ours. We just got to figure out what that is." I said.

"Warrick take Phoenix and go down and see if Doc Robbins has any more information on tonights murders," Grissom said.

"I've been waiting for you to get here," Robbins said as soon as we entered his morgue.

"What you got for u, Doc?" Warrick asked. Robbins gestured to the table and the body. Robbins pointed to the head of the victim.

"Just finished the autopsy on him, it looks like he killed himself," He said. I looked at Warrick, he looked at me.

"Murder/suicide?" I wondered aloud.

"How can it be? Nick didn't find any gun near the body and one thing's for sure; our victim didn't get rid of it after he killed himself." Warrick said.

"You find that gun and you'll find this guys prints all over it," Robbins said.

"Thanks, Doc," Warrick said as we walked out of the morgue.

"This thing just gets weirder and weirder," I murmured.

"Hang on," I said. I took out my phone and dialled the number that Carol Hanson had given me.

"Carol, this is Phoenix Matthews, the CSI you met earlier," I said.

"What's wrong, CSI Matthews?" She asked.

"I need to speak with Tommy as soon as," I said.

"I can bring him into you, we'll be there within the hour," she said.

"The son, you think he knows something?" Warrick asked me.

"Like you said, Warrick, the guy didn't get rid of his own suicide weapon after he killed himself with it. Someone else did,"

"Grissom isn't going to like this," he said.

"I don't think I like it either," I said. We got out of the lift on the CSI floor and headed in the direction of Grissoms office to tell him our news.

The social worker sat next to Tommy in the break room of CSI HQ. A more informal setting was better I thought.

"Hey, Tommy," I said as I came into the room with Warrick.

"Hello, can me and Gillian go home yet?" He asked. I sat down at the table across from him, Warrick next to me.

"I'm afraid not. Tommy, this is another friend of mine, his name's Warrick," I said.

"Hi," Tommy went up to making two action figures beat each other up.

"Hi, Tommy," Warrick said. Tommy stopped playing with his toys and looked at me again.

"Did you find out what happened to daddy yet?" He asked.

"I think so, but first of all I need to ask you some questions, that okay?" I asked.

"Yeah,"

"Do you know if daddy went upstairs with mommy when she was going to bed?" I asked. Robbins had said that the pills she had taken hadn't had time to work their magic when she had died. Tommy shook his head.

"I was already asleep," he said.

"What about Laurie, do you remember when she went to bed?" I asked.

"Laurie was out when I went to bed," he said.

"What about Gillian?" I asked. There had been blood spatters on her babygro.

"She's still little she sleeps in mommy's room," he told me. Indeed the baby cot had been in the master room.

"You remember just before daddy asked you to hide with Gillian? Did he say anything else to you?"

"Just to hide and be real quiet, so that he wouldn't hear us." Tommy went back to his toys, bashing the crap out of both of them.

"Do you know what the truth is, Tommy?" Flashback, Grissom had asked me almost the exact same question twenty years ago.

"Yeah,"

"Well I need you to tell me the truth, because I know that there wasn't anyone else in the house tonight. What did else did daddy tell you to do?" I asked.

"Nothing," Tommy said sullenly.

"He told me to come back in a few minutes and get the gun to hide it," he added all in a rush.

"Where did you hide it?"

"Under the bed where me and Gillian were," he said. I looked at Warrick, that explained how the bullet had gotten there, but so far we had no gun. Sara and Nick had gone over there to take a second look.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No, Tommy, you didn't do anything wrong," I told him.

"I had to help him, he said he'd hurt Gillian if I didn't," he whispered.

"it wasn't your fault, Tommy," I told him. Carol and Tommy left.

"Not a nice thing for Sanderson to do to his own kid," Warrick said. I had nothing to say to that. Grissom and the others came in.

"So, did it go like you thought it did?" He asked.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Good job," he told me.

"Tell that to Tommy. His father made him get rid of the gun, told him that if he didn't then he'd hurt Gillian." I said. Everyone took a seat around the table.

"You figure out why he killed your guy?" I asked.

"Sanderson was in debt, a lot of debt. Owed over thirty grand. Couldn't afford to pay him back so he just killed him."

"And then he killed his own family, what a nice guy." Sara said.

"What I don't get is why he didn't kill Tommy and Gillian," I said.

"It's simple," Grissom said.

"His wife and daughter knew what he had done. Tommy and Gillian weren't a threat to him and he needed someone to get rid of the gun afterwards so he needed Tommy and in his warped mind he needed to keep Gillian alive as leverage against Tommy."

"Asshole," I muttered. I could only imagine how Tommy felt.

"And so ends another day of solving the endless crime," Warrick said.

"Breakfast, anyone?" Asked Grissom.

"Going to go home and be there when Lindsey wakes up," Catharine said.

"And I'm going home to pretend I live in a normal world for a while," I said. I followed Catharine out the door. I walked out into the parking lot and got into my car. Someone knocked on the passenger door.

"You wanna let me in?" Nick asked. _Not particularly, _I thought. Instead I reached over and unlocked the door and he got in. I returned to staring out the windshield.

"Another bum case we can add to the files."

"I'm just sitting here wondering what hell makes some parent such bastards," I said.

"Luck of the draw," he said.

"I'm serious, Nick," I said.

"I know, Grissom would say that there just are," He said.

"What would you say?"

"Probably the same thing. You can't change the whole world, Phoenix, so give up trying." He told me.

"I'm not trying to change it, I know that's pointless. It just makes you think, y'know?"

"Yeah, but you could go crazy thinking about it all the time,"

"I know, you want to come back home with me?" I abruptly changed the subject.

"Sure," he said. We sat in silence for a few more moments.

"You turn the key and put your foot on the accelerator and the car starts moving," he said eventually.

"Nope," I said. Feeling a little better, it was nice to have a bit of normality back.

"Nope? What nope?" He asked.

"Not this car. This car you turn the key, stomp on the accelerator and nothing happens. Nothing in this car works, Instead you're left here wondering why the hell you don't just sell the thing and get a new one." I said.

"Ah," he said.

"We could always use my car,"

"Yeah, we could. I guess," then I started laughing.

"What?" He asked.

"Well the seatbelt lock won't release," I told him.

"You're going to sell it anyway, right?" He asked.

"I was going to drive it around Vegas and crash it into walls until there isn't enough of it left to fit in a matchbox, but it won't start. The seatbelt won't release me, the pedal has jammed against my foot and just to add insult to injury…" I tugged my arm away from the keys showing where my jacket sleeve had snagged.

"So why do you still have this car?" He asked.

"Because…" I paused.

"I don't know, because I'm to lazy to get rid of it," I finished lamely. An actual smile broke out on his square jawed countenance.

"Hang on," he pulled the jacket sleeve off where it had snagged on the steering column and then bent down to loosen the foot pedal. He was down there for a while when Warrick came out and walked over to my car. He leaned in my window, looked at where Nick's head was, and promptly decided to go elsewhere. I couldn't help it I started laughing again. Nick finally released my foot and sat up again a penknife in his hand.

"What?" He asked, slicing through the seatbelt.

"Warrick," I gasped, between laughs. Nick looked at me like I was crazy.

"Warrick what?"

"Was just here," I said when I finally got myself back under control.

"Oh? Why didn't he stick around?" He asked.

"Because you were trying to get my foot out from under the pedal," I said as if that explained everything. But judging by the look on his face it didn't.

"You practically had your head in my lap,"

"Oh," he paused.

"You could have asked him if he wanted to join in," he grinned at me cheekily. I swatted him across the back of the head.

"Nick!"

"Wha-" he broke off as I kissed him.

"That's a brilliant idea, but do you think he'd go for that kind of thing?" I asked when I finally broke the kiss. He stared at me with wide eyes, before realising that I was kidding and then he shook his head.

"I never know where you're serious or kidding," he said.

"The sign of a good comedian. It was just funny because, y'know, we haven't actually done anything yet."

"Yet? That sound hopeful," he said.

"Nick, don't you realise what just happened?" I asked, turning serious for a moment.

"What's that?" He asked.

"We just gave something for Warrick to spread around the grapevine," I explained.

"I'll threaten him with something and he'll keep quiet," he told me, shrugging.

"How professional of you," I said, trying to open the door to get out.

"Oh, for…let me out your side, Nick," I crawled across the seats and finally got out of my heap of junk.

I handed Nick the box of cornflakes.

"Yummy, I love cornflakes," he said in a tone that made it clear he meant the exact opposite.

"Me to," I said. I poked my spoon at the cornflakes cautiously, as if it were one of Grissoms experiments gone wrong. Then I ate really fast.

"You're gonna make yourself sick if you do that," Nick stated.

"Faster you eat the less you taste," I informed him.

In plopped down in the middle of the sofa and Nick sat next to me. We sat in silence for a long time.

"So, what now?" He asked eventually. I answered by kissing him.

"All you were waiting for was the invitation, huh?" He asked, kissing me again. I shrugged this time when he let me go.

"I wasn't sure," was all I said. Then I was on him again, his arms wrapped around me.

"Oh, not again!" Warricks voice. I looked over at him and then back at Nick.

"I'm not going to say anything, because I really don't want to see anything," Warrick continued, he put his hand over his eyes and went straight into the kitchen. I leaned my head against Nick's chest, giggling nervously.

"Well, that put an end to that," Nick said.

"Yeah," I said. Nick knew that I was nervous about this anyway and the fact that Warrick was now here only made me worse.

"But not if we go to your house," I smiled at him.

"Good idea," he said. He stood up and pulled me to my feet, his arm around my shoulders we moved towards the door.

"See you later, Warrick!" I called.

"He's probably hiding under the table, waiting for us to leave, y'know," Nick said.

"Then let's hurry up and give him what he wants," I told him. He pulled open the door open and slammed it behind us, making sure Warrick understood that we were gone.


	5. pt 5

Night Shift

Part 5

I've finally started reading the CSI novels, which come in very handy when I'm looking for terms and such

BTW: I know it says in the last chapter that there are sexual scenes, if your really interested to know all the stuff in it then go to I go under the name of Psycho D-Girl. This chapter is also a little different over there.

(Day after NS, pt 4)

Thirty minutes before we were supposed to be back to work that night we were both rushing to get dressed. I yanked on my jeans and zipped them up quickly and then looked around.

"Where's my t-shirt?" I asked. He stopped buttoning his shirt long enough to look around for a second and then he shrugged.

"Borrow a t-shirt," he pointed to a pile on a chair nearby. I pulled on the one from the top of the pile.

"Do we have time for breakfast?" I asked.

"We've only got thirty minutes to get in there. We could always pick something up on the way. You hungry?" He said.

"Yeah, for some unknown reason I'm starving," I replied, confused by the question.

"Unknown reason? You're reason is what we were doing all night," Nick laughed.

"Hmm, sounds like a good enough one to me," I smiled at him.

I went straight to the break room, a large breakfast roll in one hand and a cup of coffee in another. Grissom looked up as I came in, but said nothing. His response was the same when Nick followed me in three minutes later. Grissom started handing out assignment slips. I almost did a double take when I saw my one.

"I'm working alone?" I asked. Grissoms mouth twitched in a half smile as he looked at me.

"I thought it was about time," was all he said. I stood up, stuffing the last of the breakfast roll in my mouth and went off to get my case.

I stuck the keys in the ignition and was about to turn them when someone tapped on the window. I rolled it down and glared at the person.

"Jeez, give me a heart attack why don't you?" I said sarcastically. Nick smiled and shrugged.

"Sorry," he said.

"Just wanted to tell you to be careful out there."

"I'm always careful," I told him.

"You know what I mean," he said.

"There was something I wanted to ask you," he paused.

"Which is?" I prodded.

"I wanted to ask you to move in with me," he saw the look on my face.

"I know we haven't been together that long, but I got a feeling about this and you know…" he shrugged. It took me a moment to realise he was actually serious.

"Jesus, Nick…" I sighed.

"You gotta ask me that question right now?"

"You don't want to?" His mouth turned down at the corners.

"No, I didn't say that. You just caught me by surprise, that's all. Give me some time to think about it, okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, of course," he leaned in through the window and kissed me, before jogging over to the Tahoe he and Warrick were driving to a Casino.

I got out of the Tahoe outside the old and seedy looking apartment building on Paradise Road.

"So what happened here?" I asked O'Riley as I got out of the Tahoe.

"Ground floor apartment, twenty seven year old female," he told me leading the way into the flat.

"Anything else?" I asked. His smile was slightly patronizing.

"That's why you're here," he said, leaving me alone to my work. I took out a recorder, preparing to record everything I saw here. Something Catherine had suggested I do, especially for my first few solo cases.

"Female victim; Flora Mason in bathtub, hands are tied at the wrists behind her back. She has been gagged and blindfolded." I leaned over to look at her back.

"It looks like she was hit on the back of the head. Unknown at this time when this was done," I set down the recorder on the toilet and took out the tools of my trade.

"A hair found on the gag stuffed in her mouth," I picked up the hair with a tweezers and looked at it closely.

"hair strand found at the scene does not match the victim who is a brunette. There also appears to be some blood on the gag," I swabbed said blood.

"Blood found on floor next to bathtub," I swabbed that as well. I went over every inch of the bathroom with a fine tooth comb; I didn't want to screw up my first time out. I found nothing else and I went outside to get the coroner to collect the body. O'Riley was still there and he gestured me over.

"What's up?" I asked as I approached him.

"We got another one near here," he replied.

"Another one what?" I asked.

"Same as what's in there, fits the MO. Female found in bathtub; Nancy Horton tied up in the same way. want to go check it out?" He asked.

"Let's see what Grissom has to say," I said. I quickly dialled Grissoms number on my mobile phone and he gave me the go ahead.

"Need a ride?" I asked the burly detective. He shook his head pointing to his Taurus parked nearby.

I went through almost the same thing at the next address. Victim found in bathtub, gagged, blindfolded, hands tied behind back, an apparent blow to the back of the head and she was also twenty seven. I collected all the evidence I could find and got back to CSI HQ.

"So the blood on victim number two's gag matches victim number one?" I asked, just a little confused by Greg's technical way of explaining things. He nodded, seemingly pleased that I had finally gotten it.

"Exactly, and take a look at this," he gestured to his pet microscope. I looked through the eyepieces and then back up at him.

"What's up, doc?" I asked coming into the morgue.

"That makes me feel like Bugs Bunny," he said. I gave him a confused look and then caught on; I hadn't actually intended to make it sound like that.

"Sorry," I muttered. Robbins nodded once and led me over between two slabs where the bodies of both victims lay.

"Both victims where struck once on the base of the skull, knocked them both out. But that isn't what killed them, take a look at this," he pointed and I followed his instructions.

"They died of frostbite?" I asked.

"More specifically they died of the cold. Their hair was damp when they came in here, know why that was?" He said.

"They were left in the bathtub; apparently the cold water was left running over them." I replied.

"Right, just enough that they couldn't get warm. After an hour, maybe less, depending on how cold the water was the blood stopped going to their extremities. Eventually the blood was only being sent to vital organs and then…" Robbins broke of shrugging.

"So…" I paused thinking.

"Whoever did this didn't want these women to die straightaway," I murmured almost to myself.

"That's what it looks like to me,"

"I also found these in both victims' ears," Robbins gave me two small evidence bags with earplugs in them. Then he went back to work and so did I.

"Same thing?" I asked O'Riley.

"Looks that way," he replied.

I went into the bathroom of the house owned by one Nora Talbot. She sat in her bathtub. Once again I set about collecting evidence and came back out gesturing to the coroner to take her away.

"Same thing?" O'Riley asked me.

"Looks that way," I said, echoing his reply to the same question earlier.

"You know what they say; until the verdict comes in don't do anything."

"You get anything from the evidence you got earlier?" He asked.

"Not yet, but I'm still not finished," I told him, climbing into the Tahoe and heading back in.

I was the second in the room for the end of shift briefing. Grissom was already there, he waved in my direction as I shut the door behind me. Then he looked right at me.

"Is that the same t-shirt that Nick wore yesterday?" He asked, as Warrick and Nick came in. I looked down at it. _Shit, _I thought, I hadn't even noticed that it was. CSI my ass…

Sara and Catherine entered, the party was about to start.

"We tied it up all nice and neatly, Gil," Catherine told him.

"What about you two?" Grissom glanced at Nick and Warrick.

"Trick roll," Warrick stated, he shrugged as if to say 'no biggie'. Grissom stared at him.

"Which has been sorted out, we found what they were using and put a stop to it, Gris,"

"How's your first going?" Grissom looked at me.

"It isn't," I rubbed my eyes tiredly.

"Three victims found in their respective bathtubs. Blood found on victim number one's gag matches victim number three, victim number two's gag matches victim number one and blood on victim number three matches victim number two. Blood found on floor of bathroom matches whoever's bathroom it was. All three died from the cold, water was left running, and their bodies couldn't keep warm. They were gagged, blindfolded, tied up and they had earplugs in their ears." I sighed loudly.

"Any other evidence?" He asked. Everyone was looking at me and I blushed a bright red.

"No fingerprints no blood other than the vic's, whole lot of no…" I trailed off as something struck me.

"What is it?" Grissom asked.

"See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil." I whispered.

"Excuse me?" Nick asked.

"The murderer blindfolded, gagged and used earplugs on the victims. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil." I looked at Grissom. My mobile phone rang and I answered it.

"Matthews," I said into it.

"The tests on those hairs you gave me came back and you're not going to believe who they belong to. You want to try guessing whose it is?" Greg asked.

"Jack the Ripper," I said.

"BEEP! Wrong answer. Try again," he said.

"Just tell me who they are, Greg," I told him. After a moment he did.

"Run them again," I instructed him.

"I did, Phoenix. Three times each, they all came back the same." He said.

"I'll be right over," I pulled open the break room door and hurried across to Greg's lab.

"Show me," I held out my hand and he gave me the printouts, I looked over them to make sure he was right.

"Oh, shit," I muttered.

"Yeah, I know," he said.

"I need you to get me employment records; time and date when they were hired?" I asked. He gave me another folder.

"Way ahead of you. Sorry Phoenix, wish I had better news."

"Tell me about it, I gotta get back in there,"

"There might be a small problem," I said quietly when I came back into the break room.

"What kind of problem?" Grissom urged.

"Greg just finished analyzing the hairs found on the three victims…" I glanced at Grissom uneasily before continuing.

"The hair on Flora Mason is an exact match to Gil Grissom," I sat down. All CSI's DNA was kept on file, just in case.

"That's bullshit!" Warrick exclaimed. I stared at him for a long moment.

"You don't think I know that already?" I asked sarcastically.

"Obviously it's planted,"

"How can you be so sure? I must be considered a suspect, the evidence never lies." Grissom said. I cleared my throat.

"Am to consider everyone whose DNA was found on the victims to be a suspect?" I asked. Grissom shrugged once.

"Yes," he said.

"Then there's going to be a problem," I paused again.

"On the second victim; Nancy Horton I found a hair matching Catherine's and on victim number three we have a hair matching Warrick Brown. That's how I know your hair was planted, unless it's some kind of conspiracy that I'm not in on." I gave Grissom the folder. For what was probably the first time in his life Grissom was lost for words. I also noticed that I now had the undivided attention of every CSI in the room.

"Greg pulled records on everyone for me. If I'm right then it's gonna go in rotation. He's coming after us, Nick's gonna be next, then Sara and then me," my mobile phone rang again.

"Matthews," I said into it. I looked at Grissom and briefly covered the phone with my hand.

"They have another woman in her apartment, Gris. Stay or go?" I asked him. he nodded which I took as a yes.

"I'll be right down, O'Riley," I hung up the phone.

"If it goes the way you said then this woman has Nick's hair on her. Take Sara with you," Grissom ordered.

"Woman's inside on the bed," O'Riley informed us as soon as Sara and I arrived on the scene. I glanced at Sara and then back at O'Riley.

"Then why call us? I already got three dead vics who I'm still working on. Why not call Ecklie?" I asked. O'Riley shrugged.

"I was told that this one might interest you," he said.

"Interest me how?"

"Take a look for yourself," he gestured us towards the apartment building. Sara and I made our way up the front walk together.

"So what is it that would interest you?" She asked.

"A lot of things catch my interest," I said.

"Like Nick?" She quirked a smile at me as she went in the door I held open.

"Just like Nick," I responded. We both went to the bathroom and looked at each other confused.

"Where the hells the body?" She asked.

"Right here," I stood in the connecting doorway to the bedroom. Sara took out the camera and started taking pictures of the body on the bed.

"Looks like the gag and blindfold came from the same kind of cloth that was used on the others," I said.

"And the same rope used on her wrists,"

While Sara was taking pictures I collected all the evidence.

"I hate when they do this," Sara said.

"Do what?" I asked her.

"Aside from it looking like the same blindfold, gag and rope we have nothing to link it to the other murders. They should have called Ecklie and his cronies," she said.

"No link yet. Greg tested the fibers in the other ones, they might be made of cotton, but they're at least twenty years old. If this is the same cloth then that's all the link we need."

"Let's go annoy Greg," Sara said almost as soon as I came in that night.

"Now that sounds like fun," I smiled at her, chewing the last of my vending machine Danish. I had given my answer to Nick at the end of shift yesterday. He seemed as happy as I was by my answer.

"As always it's such a pleasure to entertain such beautiful ladies," Greg said when we came into his lab. Sara rolled her eyes at me.

"How about I hold him down and you get him with a killer martial arts move?" She asked.

"Won't work all I know is origami. I could give him a vicious paper cut if that's okay," I said shaking my head and smiling.

"Would you like the results before or after you do that?" Greg asked. Sara looked at me and I shrugged.

"Tell us what you have and we might let you off this time," she said.

"Alrighty then. The fibers do indeed match the ones on the other victims and as you expected the blood and hair found on the gag matches Nicks. But I found something else on that sample of the blindfold you gave me, anyone want to take a guess?" He asked.

"No," Sara and I said together.

"Fine. It's pretty hard to tell but I was able to get some DNA off it, really old DNA and you're never going to guess who it belongs to." He stopped again.

"Do you want to kill him or will I?" Sara asked.

"You two are no fun. The DNA sample is saliva from one Phoenix Matthews," Greg said.

"Phoenix?" Sara asked.

"Me!" I asked at the same time.

"Yep, you have a problem, ladies." Greg said. He went back to his tests, a moment later he looked up at me.

"Grissom wants to see you, by the way,"

"Looks like you're on your own, Sara," I said.

"CSI Phoenix Matthews?" A male voice asked. I turned and saw a man in a suit; he looked like a fed.

"Yes?" I said.

"Agent Rick Culpepper. I was wondering if I could speak to you for a moment." He said.

"Trying to steal our cases off us?" Sara asked calmly. I could tell by her expression that she didn't like this guy. Culpepper ignored her.

"What about?" I asked him.

"In private," he said. I looked at Sara, she shrugged.

"I'll catch up to you," I said. I headed back to the break room, trusting that Culpepper would follow me. I sat down in the couch near one window and waited for him to say his piece.

"We need your help," he said, sat down, folding his hands on the table.

"I'm working on a case right now, what do you need help with?" I asked.

"The case you're working on. You may have noticed that your DNA showed up on a murder victim recently." He said.

"I may have. So what?"

"We think we might know who's committing these murders and we need your help to bring him in."

"Sorry, you'll have to talk to my supervisor; Gil Grissom about that,"

"I did. That's why I'm talking to you, Mr Grissom didn't seem all that…fond of the idea when I voiced it to him."

"Well then you have your answer. What do you need me for?" I stood up and had my hand on the door handle, but I was looking back at him.

"Does the name Darren Benning mean anything to you?" He asked. I froze dead in my tracks.

"The fact that you bring his name up tells me that you know what my answer is already," I said.

"He's the one who's doing all the killing and we need you to help us find him," his smile was wide.

"No," I opened the door and was about to leave.

"If you don't do this then he's going to keep on killing and every one of those deaths could be prevented if you just help us. This is your responsibility." He leaned back in his chair, the smile growing wider. It was almost as if the son of a bitch was enjoying this. I let go off the door and walked back to the table, barely managing to keep my temper in check.

"You people were supposed to let me know as soon as he got out and you didn't. I didn't screw up here; you did. This is your responsibility, not mine." I stalked out the door and went right to Grissoms office. Nick and Warrick were inside talking to him. I opened the door without even knocking.

"Why didn't you tell me!" My voice was loud and it was angry. Warrick and Nick turned at my entrance, slight surprise on his face. Grissom finally deigned to look at me.

"Nick, Warrick give us a moment," he said. Nick looked at me once more, his eyes asking me if I was alright. I ignored him.

"Take a seat," Grissom said to me as soon as the door was closed behind Nick and Warrick.

"I don't want to take a fucking seat. I want you to explain to me why you didn't tell me!" I snapped at him. Grissom took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"Culpepper told you," it was a statement of fact, not a question.

"Damn right he told me. Why is he the one? Why not you?" My voice lowered to a deadly calm.

"I told Culpepper not to tell you anything. It seems that Agent Culpepper likes to stick his nose where it really isn't needed." His voice sounded tired.

"I may not know him. I may not even like him. But at least he told me the truth. What!" I snapped.

"You decided to keep that little bit of information to yourself! How long have you known!" I screamed the last part at him.

"Culpepper only decided to inform me when he came to pay me a visit." He looked at me.

"I told Greg to tell you I wanted to speak to you."

"And that was when I met Culpepper. Did he tell you what he wants me to do?"

"Play bait for bringing back in your father,"

"Well he can go to hell. I've done that often enough already and I'm not doing it any more!"

"That's what I told him," Grissom sighed.

"You're off the case."

"What! Why!" I exploded.

"I'm changing you and Sara with Nick and Warrick. You're both working the Tilson murder." Grissom said calmly.

"I think I have enough professionalism to not take this personally!"

"You're not, but he is," Grissom put his glasses back on and watched me as I paced back and forth in front of his desk.

"I know you'd do the job, you'd present the evidence as found. You'd play things by the book. But he's gone far beyond playing nicely. He has a problem with you and he's killing people to prove his point. I don't know what it is that he wants from you, but he's obviously trying to get at you through your work and I can't let that happen." Grissom stared at me making sure that his point was understood. I understood alright, I just didn't like it.

"Fine, but I want to know what happens on this one." I went to the door, but turned to look back over my shoulder at him.

"I would have thought that at the very least you would have given me some warning that he was out, Gil."

"I'll see the four of you in the break room in five minutes," he said. I closed the door quietly behind me.

(Second person POV)

_Dammit, _Grissom thought. He had specifically told Culpepper not to say anything to her and now the agent had done the exact opposite. He supposes he shouldn't have been surprised, Culpepper excelled at pissing off his whole staff. But this time he had really done it and Grissom was pissed off. Grissom had wanted to tell her himself. Take her aside and tell her in private. He had known she was going to be upset; if he was in her shoes he would be to. He stood up and headed for the break room.

I leaned up against he counter in the break room, Sara sat at the table.

"Did Grissom say anything about what he wanted us for?" Sara asked me. Warrick came in with Nick. Nick came over to me.

"You okay?" He asked. I ignored him as well and just continued to stare at the floor until Grissom came in.

"Take a seat," he said.

"Nick, Warrick you're changing cases with Sara and Phoenix. Here's the evidence collected so far. Sara, you and Phoenix are working on the Tilson case. An hour ago I received a visit from Rick Culpepper who told me who gave me the name of the suspect."

"Wait a minute. Why are you changin us around, Gris?" Warrick asked.

"The suspects name as given to me by agent Culpepper is Darren Benning. He was released from jail just over two months ago." Grissom said.

"What was he-?" Warrick asked.

"Can we go now?" I interrupted abruptly.

"Two separate crimes. Murder was one," Grissom replied to Warricks question, ignoring me.

"And the second?" Warrick asked.

"The second reason for his imprisonment is sealed. Currently it has no connection to these murders," Grissom said.

"What if it becomes important to this investigation?" Warrick asked. I moved forward and literally yanked the folder on the Tilson murders right out of Grissoms hands.

"Come on, Sara," I snapped. Warrick was like a dog with a bone. Nick was the only one who knew my deep, dark secret and I wanted to stay that way. The reason my father had been imprisoned was not sealed and I knew that Grissom was just trying to protect me, but with Warrick digging around for more information he might have no choice but to talk about it and if that happened I didn't want to be here for it.

"What's the rush?" Sara asked following me out.

"Might as well get to work on this as soon as," I said. She shrugged, seeming to accept my answer.

"Let me go get my stuff and I'll be right with you," she said.

"I'll be in the locker room," I told her and we both went our separate ways.

"You know that locker didn't do anything to you," Nick's voice. I stopped beating the shit out of the locker in question and turned to face him.

"Is there something I can do for you?" I asked my voice overly sweet.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Just want to get to work is all; the sooner we start the sooner we can start putting evidence together." I replied.

"I would believe that except for the fact that you look like you want to kill someone," he watched me closely.

"Then maybe I'm just having a bad day, not a lot of sleep recently, know what I mean?" I asked.

"Yeah, but that isn't the real reason."

"What are you, psychic? You wouldn't understand," I muttered.

"I'm just going to pretend you didn't say that and then you're going to tell me what's really wrong." He said calmly. I instantly felt ashamed, but instead of apologising I turned and kicked the locker, it rocked a few times and then settled back to the floor.

"Stop, Phoenix," he grabbed me from behind and pulled me away from the lockers. I dropped to the bench like some defeated child.

"You sure you want to know? You might find out something you don't like," I said eventually.

"I wouldn't ask if I wasn't," he sat on the opposite bench.

"Does it have something to do with Darren Benning?"

"It has everything to do with him," I lifted my head enough that I could see his concerned face through the hair that had fallen in my face.

"He's your father," Nick reached out and took my hand. For a moment I stared at our interlocked fingers and I nodded.

"That's him," I sighed.

"Grissom thinks that he's come to Vegas looking for me, trying to get my attention with the murders. Greg found my DNA on the last victims gag. I think he may be using my blanky," I told him.

"Blanky?" He asked.

"A small towel that I had when I was a child, I called it my blanky and he's using it to gag and blindfold these women. I chewed on it all the time," I explained.

"Then Grissom's right," Nick said.

"I know he's right. It's not Grissom I'm angry with. I just…" I shrugged helplessly and Nick moved over to sit next to me, putting his arm around my shoulders.

"I always thought that I'd never see him again, that he'd never find me. That was just stupid, how many people you know who are called Phoenix?"

"It's not stupid," Nick assured me.

"You wanted a normal life, away from him and now that you're actually starting to live that life he comes back into it."

"It's like he's controlling me again. Culpepper told me it was him and since then I keep half expecting him to come walking right in here like he never did anything to me. I don't know if I can handle him and that's what scares the hell out of me." I shrugged. His arm tightened around me.

"I wouldn't say that. You're stronger than you think you are," he said.

"Besides me and Warrick are working this now, he can't get to you through the case,"

I looked at him a little sceptically and he smiled down at me.

"You think I'm lyin?" He asked jokingly.

"I wouldn't dream of it, Nick," I said in a mock serious voice. I felt better already.

"You ready to go?" Sara came in the door.

"Yeah," I leaned down and kissed him.

"Thanks, Nick,"

"All comes as part of the package," he winked at me as I left.


	6. pt 6

Night Shift

Part 6

I don't know the amount of damage a pipe bomb can do, so I'm just guessing here. Nor am I all that sure on radio terms.

(Day after NS, pt 5)

A single police car was parked in the long driveway.

"It's okay, officer, we've got it from here," Sara told the policeman who waited next to his car.

"Here's yours," I handed Sara's case to her and we went into the darkened house. The body lay in the hallway. Sara already had her camera out and was taking pictures. I looked back towards the door and then down at the body.

"Shot twice once in the back, once in the head. Running away maybe?" I asked.

"Maybe," Sara said. I rolled the woman over carefully.

"No exit wounds. That should help, if we find a gun."

"I hate when you say that," I muttered.

"Take a look at this," I went up to the wall. Sara squinted at it through the gloom.

"I don't see anything," she said. I took a bottle of luminol out of my case and started to spray the wall.

"Got the nerd glasses?" I asked. She tossed a pair to me and put on one herself.

" 'SHE IS MINE'. What is that supposed to mean?" She asked.

"Ex-boyfriend. You want to take a photograph before it fades?" I smirked at her. She blushed at having to be reminded.

"You got enough luminol?" Sara asked me.

"What for?" I asked.

"To spray all the walls," she explained. I held up the bottle I held.

"Got me a whole bottle of the stuff," I replied, starting to spray the rest of the wall.

"Not if you're doing the whole house,"

"What! You've got to be kidd…ah crap. Fine, you'll be okay working here all by your lonesome?"

"Going to have more fun anyway,"

"Shut up, Sara,"

"I'm done downstairs. I was going to spray the rooms you haven't done yet," Sara stood in the doorway of the bedroom.

"Too late, this is the last room…and I got something," I put on the glasses again.

" 'AND SHE WILL BE AGAIN'," Sara read the blood on the wall.

"Not if she's dead," I muttered. I glanced at Sara as she stood looking at the wall.

"What?" She asked after a moment.

"You're the one with the camera," I said.

"You better not tell anyone about this," she threatened.

"Depends on what I get in return," I held up a few evidence bags.

"Looks like the lady of the house wasn't the only one here tonight."

"What did you find?" Sara asked.

"A used condom in the bathroom wastebasket and some grey hair on the bed,"

"You went through the garbage?" Sara shook her head.

"No, I tripped over it. The damn thing was just inside the door and the light don't work." I said.

"You still found it," Sara shrugged.

"Let's just hope Greg can get some usable DNA off it,"

"You done here?"

"The sooner I get out of the house of horrors the better. Stinks of luminol," I shuddered dramatically and Sara laughed.

The photographs finally developed we laid them out on the table, as the house was laid out. Sara had taken pictures of every room.

"Body in hallway, message on wall over victims head reading 'SHE IS MINE', condom in bathroom wastebasket, and a message on the bedroom well reading 'AND SHE WILL BE AGAIN'. Talk this one out," Sara instructed me.

&&&&&&&&&

_Regina Tilson has decided that tonight she's going to have a quiet night in. She's wanted to read this novel for a long time; she just never had the time. She crawls into bed early with her book, starts to read it. She doesn't hear the door downstairs being opened, or the man making his way upstairs. She turns the page on her book and that's when the shadow falls across the page. She looks up and sees her murderer and she smiles. She hadn't expected her boyfriend to come over tonight; he had told her that he had other plans._

"_Hey, babe," he sits on the edge of her bed and kisses her. They engage in a little foreplay and then have sex. Afterwards they lie in bed, but the boyfriend gets up and goes into the bathroom, taking off the condom and throwing it in the wastebasket and comes back out._

"_Sorry, Reggie," he says to his girlfriend._

"_I can't stay tonight," he tells her. She pouts a little, but she understands because he's always been this way. She gets out of bed and walks him to the front door, but her boyfriend had another reason for coming here tonight. He wants her dead. He pulls the gun out of his jacket pocket and points it at her. Trisha's eyes widen in surprise and then she laughs, thinking that he's joking._

"_Put that away," she says. His stance doesn't change and after a moment she realises that he's serious, she turns and runs. He shoots her in the back and she goes down, but she's not dead, she's desperate to get away from him, crawling along the smooth wood floor. He stands over her, looking down at her pathetic attempts at escape. He pulls the trigger again, hitting her in the head. This time she lies still._

&&&&&&&&&

"What makes you think she knew him?" Sara asked when I was finished.

"You said there was no sign of a break in. She had to let him in or he had a key of his own. Either way she knew her killer." I said.

"And the DNA will tell us what we need to know," she said.

"Want to take a lunch break?"

"Are you paying?"

"I'll see what I can do," She smiled.

"Greg wants to know if you gave him the right hair sample," Sara came in the door of the lab I was working in.

"I gave him the ones I found on the bed," I looked up at her and saw Greg hanging behind her and both of them were looking at me very strangely.

"Are my jeans on back to front or something?"

"You didn't visit any relatives recently?" Greg asked.

"I don't have any living relatives," I replied. My mother had been an only child and both her parents had died when I was six. As for my father; well as you can understand I didn't want to have him as a relative.

"You're sure?" Sara asked.

"Yes, I'm sure." I said a little testily.

"What's going on?" Grissom stopped behind Greg. Greg jumped; Grissoms presence always seemed to make him nervous.

"The hair sample that Phoenix found on our victims bed belong to a male relative. Father or brother maybe," Sara explained. My eyes met Grissoms over the top of Sara's head.

"I don't have any brothers," I said.

"Go back to your lab, Greg, and don't tell anyone else about this until I say so." Grissom said. He came into the lab and Sara followed him.

"What else did you get?" Grissom sat down on a stool. I shrugged and stared at the table.

"Dead woman, shot in the back and the head. Messages written in blood on the walls 'SHE IS MINE' and 'SHE WILL BE AGAIN'. A condom in a wastebasket and hairs on the bed." Sara said.

"And the hairs are a match. Looks like he's spreading it around," Grissom said.

"Yeah, great," I muttered.

"Okay," Grissom said in a tone of voice that indicated he meant business.

"Sara you and I are going back to that house. You're going to work in here until this is finished." He looked at me.

"No, no way. I already changed cases once tonight because of him. I'm not doing it again," I argued.

"Phoenix, this is serious-" Grissom started.

"You don't think I know that! He's making this personal. No matter what I work on he seems to know. Who's to say that the next case I take on isn't one of his?" I asked. Sara was looking between Grissom and me, knowing something was wrong, but not sure what that was.

"I want to catch him as much as you. Probably even more. I'm not giving up just because it's him." I looked at him challengingly.

"I don't like it," he said.

"Neither do I. But I'm working this one, boss," I stood up and looked over at Sara.

"Okay, but I want you to keep your radio with you. Both of you," he looked at Sara as well.

"That won't be a problem," I assured him.

We rode in silence most of the way. Sara obviously knew by now that I wanted to get the murderer and that he was my father.

"He asked me to move in," I said out nowhere.

"What?" She looked away from the road for a second.

"Nick, he asked me to move in with me and I said yes. Don't know whether that was a good idea or not." I said.

"That's good," she glanced at me sideways.

"Means he's taking this seriously."

"I guess so. I mean I know we haven't been together that long, but I have a feeling about it. You know what I mean?" I asked.

"Vaguely," Sara stopped outside the house and climbed out and we went in together.

"More pictures?" I asked her.

"As many as we can get," she replied.

"You want me to just stand around holding the tripod?" I asked her. Sara was better at taking these photos than I was.

"If that's really what you want to do," she said.

"I can be your model if you. Do I have the body for it?" I struck a pose. That's me; when the shit hits the fan I become the clown and act like there's nothing wrong. She smiled at me.

"Maybe you should ask Nick that question," she said.

"Which room first, Ms Spielberg?" I asked.

"Kitchen," she replied.

"Dammit," she opened the back of the camera.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"No film,"

"Ever think of changing to digital? Never mind I'll go get it," We usually kept a spare roll in the Tahoe's just in case of something like this happening, I set down the tripod and went back to the Tahoe. I was digging around in the glove compartment when I heard it. A gunshot. I dropped the roll of film and reached for the radio in my jacket pocket. The other hand going to the holstered gun at my waist.

"This is Phoenix Matthews, requesting backup at the Tilson residence, Tropicana Avenue," I said into the radio.

"This is Catharine Willows, are you in danger?" Catharine's voice crackled back over the radio.

"Unknown, shot fired inside the house," I said nervously.

"We're on our way, three minutes," Catharine said. I could already hear the siren in the distance.

"Understood, I'm going back in there," I told him.

"Negative, wait until we get there," she said.

"Sara's in there-ugh!" I turned around and was hit in the face by something and went down hard. I must have blacked out for a few seconds, next thing I know the guys kicking me and then he has my gun pointed in my face. Sure, you're trained for this kind of thing happening, but it's a whole different call game when it actually happens.

"So you're the one he's after!" The man said.

"Drop the gun!" A voice yelled. A cop car's arrived just in time to save my ass. The guy looked to the cops and then down at me, after a long moment he cursed and threw my gun down and drops to his knees his hands folded over the back of his head. I push myself upward on one hand, I felt nauseous.

"You okay, ma'am?" One of the cops asks me. I nod, unable to get any words out for a few moments.

"My partner, inside," I gasp after a second.

"Got it. Danny, we got one inside!" He called to his partner who was just closing the back door of the cop car. The two cops went inside the house. While I balanced on my hand.

"Phoenix!" Catharine's voice over me. I look up at her and smile weakly, she crouched down next to me and handed me a tissue. I wiped it across my mouth.

"Thanks," I croaked.

"We're going to need an ambulance!" One of the cops called from the doorway of the house.

"Sara…" I whispered. I could see the worry in Catharine's eyes.

"Don't worry about Sara," she told me. I think I passed out then, must have been hit harder than I thought.

I really hate bright lights when I wake up and hospitals are filled with the damn things. There was a Velcro cast on my arm and it felt like something was wrapped around my chest, the paper stitches on my cheek itched. A nurse pulled the curtain aside.

"You've finally woken up," she said pleasantly.

"You have a visitor," she smiled knowingly and moved aside to let the 'visitor' in, probably Grissom coming to tell me I was an idiot. Instead Nick came in; he hugged me tight against his chest, being careful of whatever injuries I had.

"Before you bring her home. These are for you," the nurse came back holding a pill bottle and handing it to Nick.

"Take two every six hours." She instructed.

"Thanks," Nick said to her. He put his arm around my waist and led me out of the hospital; Catharine was sitting in the waiting room.

"How's Sara?" I asked her.

"No serious injuries. She's sleeping right now. Grissom wanted me to stay for a while," she said. He probably wanted someone babysitting me.

"Come on," Nick pulled me along towards the door.

"Grissom very kindly gave me the rest of the night off. So we're going home," he unlocked the door of his car and helped me in.

"Wake up," a voice said.

"Two minutes," I mumbled sleepily.

"We're home, Phoenix," the voice said again.

"Two minutes," I repeated.

"You can't sleep in the car," Nick said. I looked at him blearily.

"Don't want to sleep in the car," I mumbled. My eyes closed again.

"Then wake up and walk into the house," he told me.

"Two minutes!"

"You keep saying that. Come on," the passenger door opened and he helped me out. I leaned against his side and he did most of the walking. Whatever they had given me at the hospital was very strong. I moved in the direction of the couch, but he pulled me away from it.

"The bed's this way," he said.

"Couch's closer," I mumbled. I could hear him laugh a little.

"Doctor said you should go to bed, you're not going to disobey doctors' orders, are you?" He asked.

"Doctor's no' here,"

"No, but I am and if you're not going to walk to the bed then…" he lifted me in his arms and started carrying me towards the bedroom. I snuggled into him and I was probably asleep before he even put me down on the bed.

"Wake up, Phoenix," Nick's voice brought me back to startled consciousness.

"What?" I asked.

"You were having another nightmare. You okay?" He asked. I nodded before curling into his side and putting my Velcro casted arm across his stomach.

"Yeah," I mumbled and went right back to sleep.

"Feel better?" Nick looked up at me from where he stood over the cooker.

"I feel like someone's been using me for a punching bag and I have a herd of elephant's tap dancing in my head. Other than that I'm just peachy," I said sarcastically. Did I mention I don't like waking up? He just nodded, smiled and brought a glass water and two of the pills over to me.

"Take these, breakfast will be ready in a minute," he said. I sat down at the table and swallowed the tablets and half the glass of water and watched him as he continued cooking.

"Coffee?" I asked. He turned around to look at me, a spatula in one hand.

"Not with those pills," he told me. I groaned loudly.

"You couldn't have told me that before I took them?" I asked sarcastically. He just smiled and turned back to his culinary masterpiece.

"Here you go," he brought two plates over to the table and set one in front of me.

"Thanks," I said. Bacon, eggs and sausage, just the thing to warm up your arteries on a cold evening.

"You gonna feed it to me as well?" I grinned at him, forgetting about the paper stitches there. He had cut up all my food in small, easy to eat pieces.

"I could, but it's probably good for you to do that yourself right now. Wouldn't want anything to happen to you," he said, digging into his own breakfast.

"Says you," I muttered.

"Didn't you just wake up?" He asked.

"Yeah, why?" I glanced at him.

"You're in an unusually good mood, that's why," he said.

"I'm probably stoned because of those pills you just gave me," I shrugged one shoulder. He shook his head laughing, that smile of his flashing across his face again.

"I've got to go in a few minutes," he said as he cleared the table.

"Go where?" I asked dumbly. The look he gave me was half amusement, half apologetic.

"To work. Grissom called just before you woke up, he wants everyone who can come in tonight." He said.

"Give me a minute to get changed then," I stood up.

"Except you," Nick told me.

"Because I'm injured, right?" I asked. His answering shrug was enough answer.

"Well I've still got one good hand and eye," one of my eyes was slightly blackened from where the guy had hit me yesterday. Nick looked undecided so I rushed to convince him.

"You said Grissom wanted everyone to work. So I should go to,"

"I don't think he meant you as well," he said.

"Maybe not, but I'd prefer to be doing something other than sitting here by myself doing nothing. Besides if I work in the lab all night it means that he can send the rest of you out to do some real work," I was doing everything to persuade him. I sure as hell didn't want to stay here on my own.

"Okay," he eventually agreed.

"I'll be right back," I graced him with a smile. I could afford to be gracious now that I had gotten my on way. I managed to get my knickers on; but you try putting on a pair of jeans when you can only use one hand. For a few minutes I was like a rabbit hopping around the place with the waistband of my jeans in one hand and I still hadn't even tried to put on my bra. But like all people who think that they're so independent I wasn't willing to give in without at least putting in a good effort.

"AHHHHH!" I screamed.

"Niiiiicccckkkkk!" I howled. I could hear running feet and Nick skidded to a halt in the doorway.

"What!" He said.

"I can't get my jeans on," I replied.

"Is that all? I thought you were after losing a limb or something," he came over and zipped up my jeans for me.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"Need help with the rest?" He asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Wait, what about the rest of my stuff. When are we going to bring it over?"

"Already done. Warrick brought it over last night," he told me, trying to get the back of my bra closed.

"Threats work quite well on him," he said.

"Figures you'd do that," I muttered.

"If it works…" he shrugged.

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah,"

"Phoenix you're injured, you shouldn't be here," Grissom said as I came into the break room with Nick.

"He tried that," I jerked my thumb at Nick.

"Didn't work for him either," I smiled sweetly at Grissom. He rolled his eyes and muttered something about stubbornness.

"Catharine, Warrick, you got anything?" He asked.

"We went over the whole house again with a fine tooth comb. We got nothing other than what Phoenix and Sara found last night." Warrick said.

"We left the photographs in number three lab," I told him.

"We've been looking over them again; see if we could find anything you missed." Catharine said.

"And?" I asked. I wasn't taking this personally, I wanted for him to be caught as well. She shook her head and turned to Grissom.

"I thought you were going back to the job Nick and Warrick took last night," she said.

"I was waiting for Nicky to come in. No one who's working in the field tonight works alone." He said.

"Catharine, Warrick I want you to keep working this,"

"We're all over it, Gris," Warrick assured him.

"Nick's coming out with me. Phoenix you work here tonight," Grissom said.

I stared at the pictures spread out in front of me. So far I had nothing to show for four hours of going through them again. Warrick came in.

"Find anything new?" He asked.

"Got me a whole lot of nothing," I said.

"Where's Catharine?"

"Right behind me," he stepped aside as Catharine caught up to him.

"What's up, Phoenix?" She asked.

"Gotta use the bathroom and I need a little help," I replied. She nodded and off we went. I hated having to depend on others for their help, but I had no real choice.

"Want to grab something to eat?" Greg stuck his head half an hour later.

"Let me guess; Grissom told you to keep an eye on me?" I said.

"Nope, it was Nick," he shrugged.

"Might as well, I'm not getting anything done here anyway," I stood up and everything went black.

"Wha-?" I jerked back to full consciousness. Greg crouched over me.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah," I sat up.

"What happened?"

"You fainted," he replied. He helped me up.

"Probably need to eat something," I said.

"You want to lie down for a while?" He asked. At first I shook my head, but then changed my mind.

"Yeah, just for half an hour," I replied. I walked slowly to the break room, feeling like I was going to pass out again. He kept pace with me all the way, making sure I didn't keel over on him again. I lay down on the small couch in the break room and went to sleep after making Greg promise that he'd wake me in half an hour.

_Greg didn't keep his promise, _that was my first thought on waking two hours later. Grissom sat in a chair watching me.

"I think you should go home," he said. I shook my head as I sat up.

"I'd prefer to be working, boss," I said quietly.

"I know your mind is ready to work, but your body still has to catch up. I've asked Warrick to give you a lift back to Nick's house and Brass has agreed to leave a black and white outside to keep a watch until Nick gets back." Grissom said.

"I don't need to be babysat," I complained. Grissom smiled a little.

"Maybe not, but it would make me feel better," he said. I knew he was just humouring me.

"Just give me a chair and work to do and I'll be fine," I argued.

"Not tonight," his voice was firm.

"Fine," I whined.

"But I want to know when you find him,"

"You'll be the first to know," Grissom promised.

"I wish I got service like this. A car right to the front door and great company as well," Warricks voice broke through my reverie.

"What?" I looked at him.

"Never mind," he said.

"You got your phone?"

"Right here," I held it up for him to see.

"Call if you have to. Grissoms orders," he said. I got out of the Tahoe.

"Grissom just loves his little orders, don't he?" I asked, just a little bit sarcastically.

"He believes in watching out for his people," Warrick corrected me.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll see you later," I walked up to the front door and put the key in the lock. The headlights of the Tahoe dimmed as Warrick pulled back out of the driveway. I slammed the door behind me and then locked it. That's the last thing I remember.


	7. pt 7

Night Shift

Part 7

(Day after NS, pt 6)

(Second person POV)

Grissom looked up as Warrick came back in.

"You get her back okay?" He asked the younger man.

"Yeah," Warrick said.

"What about the car Brass promised?" Grissom asked.

"It was just pulling up as I left," Warrick replied. Grissom closed his eyes briefly. He regretted having had to send her back like a wayward child from school. She wasn't willing to admit that she needed sleep, but Grissom had seen the dark shadows under her eyes.

"Where's Phoenix?" Nick came in and helped himself to a cup of coffee.

"She's gone back to your place to get some sleep," Grissom told him.

"On her own?" Nick put his cup down and was about to leave when Grissom stopped him.

"There's a car outside keeping an eye on the place," he said.

"Bet she wasn't happy to be sent home," Nick took a sip out of his cup as he leaned against the countertop.

"She wasn't, threatening to serious injury to Gris," Warrick joked.

"Thank you, Warrick," Grissom said. His mobile phone rang, he took it out, the caller ID saying it was Phoenix.

"Grissom," he said into it.

"You just had to do it, didn't you?" A voice that was definitely not Phoenix asked.

"Who is this?" Grissom asked.

"You know who I am. But just to refresh your memory; my name is Darren Benning and I've come for my daughter." Darren Benning's voice was calm. Grissom covered the mouthpiece.

"Warrick, does Phoenix have her phone on her?" He asked. Maybe she had forgotten to bring it home with her, or it had fallen out of her pocket somewhere.

"She even showed it to me before she got out," Warrick told him. Nick stood up, paying attention now.

"What did you do to her?" Grissoms voice was sharp, businesslike.

"Nothing. At least not yet. Of course she's going to stay that way, if you can find her within, oh," Benning paused.

"Let's say three hours. If you don't find her by then I'll send her to you…in pieces," Benning hung up. Grissom quickly dialled Brass's number.

"What's going on, Grissom?" Nick asked urgently. All he knew was that it concerned Phoenix and that was enough to make him seriously worried. Grissom waved at him to be quiet.

"Jim, it's Gil. What the hell happened to that car you were sending to Nick's?" Grissom asked. It took Brass a moment to get back to him and when he did it was just to say that the car was still parked out front.

"Yes, there's something wrong. He rang me on Phoenix's phone. Tell those cops to get off their asses and check the house to see if she's still in there!" Grissom ordered. Grissom was angry, an emotion that he rarely displayed. He had sent her home and he felt responsible.

"I'll meet you there," Brass told him hanging up.

"Grissom, what the fuck happened?" Nick was in his face now, his coffee completely forgotten about.

"That was her father. He's got her phone and he told me that if we don't find her within three hours then…" Grissom trailed off. Nick's face paled. Grissom stood up.

"Warrick, get Catharine, meet us at Nick's place as soon as you can," Grissom said. Warrick wasted no time with pointless questions, he just left.

"Come on," Grissom grabbed Nick's arm when he didn't move.

"Listen to me, Nick. We have three hours and that's it. We have to move now!" His voice was surprisingly gentle; he knew how Phoenix felt about Nick. He also knew how much Nick loved her, even if he never said anything about it.

(First person POV)

I couldn't see anything and I couldn't talk. Both my wrists were tied together and I could tell I was awake because my broken arm was killing me.

"You should have known better than to try and run away from me," a very familiar voice said. My voice was muffled against the gag tied around my mouth.

"Sorry I can't let you talk, Phee. I don't want to give away any clues just yet," he said. My voice turned into a sob. I was terrified of him, I always had been. the problem was that he knew it

"Don't worry. I gave your friend Grissom some time to come find us. If he doesn't do it within the deadline then I'm sorry. I truly am, but I have no choice," he actually did sound sorry. I yanked my wrists against the rope binding me and pain shot up my arm. I whimpered in pain and fear.

(Second person POV)

The Tahoe Grissom drove screeched to a halt in front of Nick's house. Warrick had gotten there a few minutes earlier with Catharine and the two of them came over to join Grissom and Nick.

"She's gone, Gil. We already looked around inside. All we found were these," Catharine held up a bagged pair of house keys and Warrick a bagged small statue holding a hand of three Aces in a fan, it had blood on the base of it.

"What about Phoenix?" Nick asked in a dull voice.

"She isn't there. Looks like she just went in the front door and that's where he hit her," Catharine said.

"Nick, Warrick, get those back to the lab and see if you can get anything," Grissom told them.

"I want to be here if you find her," Nick said. Grissom looked at him.

"We're down to two hours and thirteen minutes, Nick. Right now we need to find out anything we can. If we find anything Catharine will let you know," he said. Nick looked like he was going to argue some more, but Warrick murmured something to him, after a moment Nick shrugged and followed the taller man.

Grissom made his way over to Brass.

"Looks like he brought her out the back way, door was open. Warrick dusted it for prints but he didn't find any," Brass told him.

Grissom frowned, lost in thought for a moment. Where would he have taken her?

(Second person POV)

(1 hour, 57 minutes left)

"Nick?" Warricks voice penetrated Nick's morbid thoughts.

"Look, I know you're worried about her. But Gris is right; we need to concentrate on this right now. It could give us the clue we need to find her."

"I know that," Nick stared at his best friend.

"What if she's dead already?" His voice was bleak. Warrick put down the statue he was working on.

"Don't think like that, bro. He's just after holing himself up somewhere with her, that's all." Warrick said.

(First person POV)

(1 hour, 35 minutes)

I could hear him walking back and forth across the tiled floor now.

"You probably want to know why I'm here," he said.

"Well, here's the deal." I could feel his breath on my back now. He had stripped me naked and put me in a bathtub. The feel of his breath made me want to curl into myself.

"You got away from me once, you won't do it again. You'll either die here or you'll come back with me, I haven't quite decided yet." He moved away from me, but continued talking.

"Grissom seems to think you're his daughter and you're not. You're mine! You'll always be mine!" His fist made contact with the back of my neck. I still whimpered, despite trying to hide it.

"Grissom is under the impression that he can get you out of here. He's wrong. I just couldn't stop myself though. His delusion is my hope. I did give him one clue though, let's see if he can put it to good use before time runs out on your clock."

_You don't know Gil Grissom, _I thought. God I hope I wasn't wrong.

(Second person POV)

(1 hour)

"Grissom," Grissom answered his phone on the first ring.

"It's Warrick. We finished looking over that stuff we found. The blood on the statue belongs to Phoenix; only fingerprints on the keys are hers." Warrick said. Grissom sighed tiredly. They were all heading into a double shift he could feel it. Mobley was going to be pissed at having to pay more overtime, but there was no way that Grissom was going to leave this to Ecklie's people.

"Thanks, Warrick. How's Nick doing?" He asked.

"I found him something else to keep him busy. Don't worry, Gris, I got my eye on him." Warrick assured him.

"Good, I'll ring if anything comes up," Grissom said.

"Likewise,"

"They have nothing other than Phoenix fingerprints and DNA," Grissom told Catharine.

"You want to tell me why her father would do this to her?" She asked. Grissom paused a moment before answering.

"That's probably Phoenix place to tell you, not mine. But she isn't here," Grissom paused, trying to think of the fastest way to tell her.

"She was my first case when I became a CSI. She was just seven. Her father murdered her uncle because she told him he was abusing her physically and sexually. He went to jail, got out three months ago and he's still holding a grudge,"

"And now he's taking it out on her," Catharine finished for him.

"Apparently," Grissom said.

(Second person POV)

(35 minutes left)

Nick didn't want to be here. He wanted to be out there helping to find Phoenix. Greg and Warrick were watching him like he was some kind of alien life form, he could feel it. Their looks also held pity and he hated that. He just prayed that she was still okay."

(First person POV)

(20 minutes left)

"What the hell is wrong with him?" My fathers voice cracked.

"The great Gil Grissom my ass!" He came over and yanked off the blindfold and gag, stuffing earplugs in my ears. He had turned the cold shower on an hour ago and I was freezing. He tied the blindfold back on, but not the gag. Now I could hear nothing.

(Second person POV)

(15 minutes left)

"You can always just hire a new investigator after she's dead I suppose," Darren Benning's voice said over Grissoms phone.

"You do anything to her and I won't stop until I find you," Grissom said.

"Threats don't work with me Mr Grissom. Take another look at the clues I left behind for you." The phone hung up.

"Clues?" Grissom wondered aloud. _What clues? _He wondered.

"What was the name of the motel that Phoenix stayed in when she first got here?"

"Blue Water," Catharine replied, and then she remembered something else.

"But then she moved to the Three Aces, said it wa-"

"That's it, the Three Aces," Grissom remembered the statue holding the fan of three Aces in its hands.

"Call Brass," he told her as he got in behind the wheel of the Tahoe.

"Want me to let Warrick and Nick know?" She asked him after she had filled Brass in. Grissom wasn't sure if they should tell Nick yet, what if she was already…?

"Yes," he said.

(Second person POV)

(3 minutes left)

"Nick! Come on, they know where she is!" Warrick stuck his head in the door of Greg's lab. Nick nearly dropped the phial that he was holding in his rush to leave. Greg caught it just in time.

(Second person POV)

(-2 minutes)

"Your time is up, Mr Grissom. By the time you find her she'll be long dead. It's been a pleasure as always," Benning hung up the phone again and got ready to leave. He took one last look at his daughter in the bathtub. She was shivering. He decided to warm her up by stubbing out his lit cigarette on her body. Then he hit her over the head and she slumped in the rapidly filling bathtub

"Goodbye, Phee," he used his pet name for her. He opened the door of the motel room and walked out into the early morning light.

(Second person POV)

"Which room is she in!" Grissom shouted at Benning. Brass's people had caught him trying to leave.

"Now, Mr Grissom, surely you don't expect me to do all the work for you," Benning smiled at him. Grissom felt like hitting the bastard. Brass returned from the main office of the motel.

"Room 402," he said. Nick and Warrick still hadn't arrived. Two uniforms went with Brass, Grissom and Catharine following close behind. The door was unlocked.

"In here," one of the uniforms called. Grissom and Catharine entered the bathroom. She was slumped over in the tub her nose almost touching the rising water.

"Catharine!" Grissom called, but she already had Phoenix feet and helped him lift her out of the bathtub. Grissom was almost afraid to check, he was sure she was already gone. Shaky fingers reached for the pulse on her neck and he felt relief course through him in time to her heartbeat.

"She's still alive," he whispered. The paramedics pushed their way past Grissom, wrapping the unconscious Phoenix in a thick blanket, checking her over and loading her onto a gurney.

"Where is she!" Nick's voice and he would have barrelled right into the tiny bathroom if Warrick hadn't held him back. Grissom stood up and went over to them.

"She's alive," he told Nick. Nick stared at the gurney as the paramedics wheeled it outside to the waiting ambulance. Grissom saw a single tear escape Nick's eye before Nick hurried after the paramedics.

"Come on, Gil," Catharine said in a soft voice. Warrick followed them both out, getting into the Tahoe he had driven over in. The ambulance carrying Phoenix already on its way to the hospital.

(Second person POV)

He sat next to the bed, staring down at her. He didn't think that he would ever have fallen for anyone and yet here he was. She was smart, good looking; in that girl next door kind of way, brown hair and green flecked brown eyes. Not his usual type. He could remember when he had first met her;

"_Nick Stokes? I'm-" he had cut right across her._

"_I don't know who you are, and I don't care to know. What I do know is why you're here." He had snapped back at her._

"_Yeah, because I'm the one who-" she had started again._

"_I said I don't want to know. Warrick tell her." He had looked to Warrick, who had an expression that suggested the other man wished he was somewhere else, anywhere else._

"_Warrick!" He had practically yelled. Warrick continued to ignore him._

"_That's right Mr. Stokes I'm from the mother ship we've come to take you home." She had said in a deep voice. After a moment Nick realised how crazy he must have sounded and he had apologised._

That was Phoenix though, he had learned that she had one very…weird sense of humour and that she could laugh at anything especially herself.

Now here she lay, her face pale. She looked almost as if she were dead. The doctors had assured him that she would be fine; he just wanted her to wake up and give him that smile of hers. He closed his eyes remembering this evening just before they had both left for work. She had asked him for help to get dressed and he knew that must have been hard, having to ask for help, but she had still done it.

She had gone to Rice University, same as he had and in Texas everyone liked football. Except her. That was what really made him like her; no, love her, was the fact that when she had first met him she had no idea who he was and she made no bones about the fact that it didn't bother her all that much.

In the last few weeks he had gotten to know her a whole lot better. She loved to watch cartoons and read comics, but she hated magazines, newspapers, chat shows, soap operas and shopping. If you wanted to know what the latest news was the last person you should ask was her, because she'd just look at you like you were from another planet. He had come into the bedroom one morning and found her on her knees praying.

"_How can you believe in a god after what you've gone through?" He had asked her. She had looked at him calmly as she got off her knees._

"_I'm alive, healthy, clean and sober. Oh, and I'm with you," she had kissed his cheek._

"_That's a whole lot to be grateful for," she smiled._

"_You don't believe in a god?"_

"_I don't know, religion isn't really my thing," he had said._

"_I didn't ask if you believed in a religion. Spirituality and religion are two totally different thing," she had said._

Did he believe in a god now? He knew she did, whatever god that was he didn't know. But she believed that this god would be good to her. _Where was her god now? _He wondered. Where was her god when her father bashed her across the back of her head? Where was her god when her father tried to kill her? Did he even exist, or was he just some figment of her imagination?

"You look like you've been told your best friend just died," her voice was weak. Nick's head came up and he stared at her.

"Your okay," his voice was relieved, he almost felt like crying. Her hand tightened in his and he squeezed it back.


	8. pt 8

Night Shift

Part 8

When I woke up that afternoon Nick was still sitting in the chair next to me bed, he was asleep. I knew he had probably stayed with me all night. The door opened a crack and Grissom stuck his head in. I raised my left hand and waved him into the room.

"Just came to make sure you were doing alright," he whispered so as not to disturb Nick.

"Better, I just want to get out of here," I told him.

"That could be a while; doctors want to make sure you're okay." He said.

"So you came in the brighten my day with good news then?" I asked jokingly. He shook his head, a shadow of a smile flitted across his face.

"That to," he said.

"How's Sara doing?" I asked.

"She's okay, should be going home in a few days. Complaining about spending to much time in here,"

"I know the feeling. I don't suppose you know how long I'm going to be here?"

"A day or two and then you get to go home with your nurse here," he nodded in Nick's direction.

"Great," I muttered. Grissom raised his eyebrows a little.

"I thought you would have given anything to have some free time with him,"

"I would. What I don't like is having to depend on him."

"You'd prefer to do everything yourself?" He asked.

"It's always worked before; at least it used to," I said.

"Exactly, so maybe it's time you told him everything," he said.

"He knows all about my father and what happened then,"

"I'm talking about the rest. The drinking, the drugs. Everything Phoenix. People in love don't have any secrets from each other. At least that's what I've heard,"

"I don't know if I can,"

"Do you love him?"

"Yeah,"

"Then tell him, he might not understand even after you tell him, but at least he'll know."

"That's an awful lot to tell him. First he finds out about my father and then the bastard comes back for a surprise visit. What if Nick doesn't understand?" I asked.

"Have you asked him how he feels about it? When your father kidnapped you he was worried about you and I mean really worried. You don't just stay around for the good stuff; you have to be there through the bad as well. That's what being in love is." Grissom was good, I'll give him that.

"You seriously think he wants to be sitting in one of these uncomfortable chairs all day and night?"

"I guess not," I muttered.

"I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, Phoenix. Can you look at Nick and honestly say that you wouldn't do what he's doing right now if it was him lying in that bed and not you?" He asked. I didn't even have to think before I answered.

"Hell no, I'd sit on a bed of nails if I had to," I replied.

"Then tell him, if you want your relationship with him to go anywhere then he's going to find out eventually." He stood up.

"You know for a guy not in a relationship you know an awful lot about it," I told him, smiling to let him know I wasn't being rude.

"Discovery channel," was all he said as he slipped back out of the room. I went back to sleep only to be woken up half an hour later by a nurse who came in to tell Nick it was time to leave.

"I'm staying right here with her," he told the nurse, in a tone of voice that suggested that he'd have to be dragged out.

"I'd prefer if he stayed. If you don't tell anyone and I don't tell anyone then we're not going to get in trouble." I said. She was young, probably hadn't been working here very long, after a moment she nodded.

"If anyone catches you in here I didn't know," she said.

"Sure," Nick said. As soon as she was gone he turned his attention back to me. _No time like the present, _I thought.

"There's some more stuff about me that you need to know," I said.

"Oh, like what?" He asked.

"You already know that I don't drink and there's a very good reason for that," and I told him everything in all its gory detail, leaving nothing out. He didn't interrupt me once while I talked and he didn't seem all that surprised by the story I had to tell either.

"You look like you already knew," I said to him when I finished.

"No, I had an idea. There's usually two reasons why a person doesn't drink; they've seen what drink can do to someone else or they're an alcoholic. You seemed to know how it was from the point of view of someone who's been there." He grabbed my hand and held it to his mouth.

"You're not upset?" I asked

"Am I supposed to be?" He asked in return.

"I don't know, I was expecting you to run out of here screaming like a little girl." I said.

"That's the problem, my little girl scream isn't very little girly." He smiled at me.

"Well that's a good thing,"

"Yeah, now get some more sleep before that nurse comes back in," He said.

When I woke up the next time Catherine sat in the chair that Nick had been in.

"Morning," she said.

"You send Nick home?" I asked her.

"To get something to eat, he doesn't seem to want to leave you." She replied.

"Can you do me a favour?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Make sure he goes home and gets some sleep, he probably needs it."

"That's a little easier said than done,"

"Keep at it. If there's one thing I've learned about you it's that you don't give up easily,"

The door opened and Nick came back in with a cup of coffee in one hand.

"What are you beautiful ladies talking about?" He asked.

"About you goin home to get some sleep, shave, changed clothes. That sort of thing," I told him. He sat down in a chair, setting his coffee on the nightstand.

"I'm not leaving you here alone," he said.

"Shouldn't you be getting some rest?" He picked up the book and flicked it open. I knew he hadn't even got past the first chapter.

"Yeah, I should be. But see and here's the problem there's this guy that I really like and I'm a little worried about him cos he isn't getting much sleep himself. Now if I knew that he was at home getting a few hours of sleep then I'd probably be able to rest myself. Know what I mean?" I smiled slyly at him.

"Hint, hint," Catherine added. Nick laughed a little and closed his book.

"Okay, okay, I get the message," he said. He glanced at Catherine and she seemed to get the hint.

"I'll be right outside," she said. Nick leaned over me, kissing me.

"You sure you'll be all right?" He asked.

"Positive," I replied.

"Call me if you need anything," he smiled down at me.

"You'll be the first. Now go," I gave him a small push in the direction of the door.

"I'll be back in a few hours,"

"By which stage we'll both be well rested. That is assuming that you actually leave here."

He waved to me as he pulled the door closed after himself. I didn't want him to go, what I wanted to do was beg him to stay with me. But I had actually listened to what Grissom had said to me, I'd never really had that before. Well except for Grissom, but that was different. I looked on Gil Grissom as more of a father figure; someone who was the exact opposite of my real father, someone you can go to for advice, and while sometimes…okay; most of the time I didn't like it, it was usually good advice. An older nurse came back in with a cheery smile on her face.

"Your entourage finally left, I see," she said.

"Took a little persuading, but he eventually decided that I wasn't the only one who needed sleep," I said.

"Doctor said you might be able to go home tomorrow," she said.

"Please don't say that, you'll get my hopes up and then I'll be told that he made a mistake," I joked.

"Well you want to look your best for that young man when he returns later, don't you?" She asked.

"Much better, no stubble burn this time," I smiled at Nick.

"I can think of better places to give you stubble burn," he whispered in my ear.

"Is that all you think about?" I slapped his arm.

"No, sometimes I think about what I'm going to eat next," he kidded.

"Well…whatever floats your boat, I guess," I said.

"So did you see the doctor yet?" He asked. I looked down at the grey t-shirt and blue jeans I wore.

"What do you think? When can we go?" I was dying to get out of here.

"Grissom, Catherine and Warrick wanted to be here, but they're all working a case," Nick held the front door open for me.

"My fathers' case," I said.

"Yeah," Nick ran his hands through his hair and I knew that talking about it was uncomfortable for him.

"What's for dinner?" I asked, quickly changing the subject

"Well I was going to have something extremely tasty and hot," he kissed me hard on the lips.

"I don't know about you though,"

"Not going to happen," I told him.

"Aww, why not?" He complained.

"Wrong time of the month," I said the words that send most people diving for cover. Except for Nick, he just gave me a blank look.

"Huh?" Was all he said.

"It's that time of the month, sorry Nick," I said.

"What are you talking about?" He asked.

"I thought science included biology," I muttered.

"It does, but what does it have to do with this," he said.

"Do I really need to give you the birds and bees speech?" I asked. He continued to stare at me blankly, after a moment it dawned on him though.

"Oh! That," he said.

"Yes, Nick, 'THAT'," I smirked at him, shaking my head as I sat down on the couch.

"So, dinner. What do you want?" He asked.

"Whatever you can cook sounds good,"

"So take out then?"

"Or take out's good to,"

Nick grabbed he phone and dropped onto the couch next to me, throwing one arm around me. A minute later he hung up.

"Pizza's on its way," he said.

"When are they interrogating him?" I asked.

"This afternoon sometime," he replied.

"Call Grissom find out when," I ordered.

"Phoenix-"

"I want to be there for it, Nick," I looked into his eyes. He stared back at me for a long moment and then sighed.

"I'll see what Grissom says," he said in resignation.

"What time is Brass gonna talk to him?" Nick asked as soon as Grissom answered.

"Yeah, she wants to be there for it," he continued when he apparently got the answer.

"I'll tell you what, Grissom, when we come in you can tell her that," Nick said tiredly. He hung up the phone.

"In an hour and a half," he told me.

"Thanks, Nick," I said.

Nick parked in a space between Grissoms and Warricks cars. He turned to look at me.

"You know you don't have to do this," he said.

"I know," I got out of the car and we walked in together.

"Grissom wants to see you first," he said, just as Grissom was coming towards us.

"How are you feeling, Phoenix?" He asked. _If another person asks me that question I'm going to kick them, _I thought. But I couldn't exactly say that to my boss.

"Not to bad, boss," I said. Warrick came out of one of the labs and saw us.

"Couldn't stay away, huh?" He asked.

"Yeah, regular workaholic, that's me," I said good naturally.

"Warrick's going to join me in the interrogation room," Grissom told me. He glanced at Nick, who nodded.

"Want to walk on over there now, bro?" Nick asked Warrick. The two of them walked ahead of us down the corridor towards the interrogation rooms.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Grissom asked me quietly. I laughed a little nervously.

"No, but I'm doing it anyway. Think it's something I need to do," I said. Grissom nodded, as if he understood.

"Okay, but you and Nick stay in the observation room next door until we're finished, alright?" He said.

"No problem, boss," I said.

I watched as they brought him into the room. Nick took my hand in his own and put the other against my back, letting me know he was there for me.

"Don't worry, he can't see you through the glass," he said. Grissom and Warrick sat down across the table from him, Brass leaning against the wall.

"I knew you'd be here, Mr Grissom," my father was the first to speak.

"And you also know why you're here, Mr Benning," Grissoms voice was neutral.

"I get the big man himself, I must be pretty important," My father said.

"When someone kidnaps one of my CSIs I usually make it a point to be here," Grissom said.

"Kidnap? How can a father kidnap their own child, Mr Grissom?"

"Knocking her out, tying her up and leaving her for dead is hardly is probably not something she would have agreed to if you'd actually asked her." Grissom said.

"So I went a little overboard, what can I say?" My father spread his hands, palms up.

"You don't have to say anything; the evidence speaks all on its own. You tried to murder her, you succeeded in murdering Flora Mason, Nancy Horton, Nora Talbot, Allison Martin and you are an accessory in the murder of Regina Tilson." Grissom placed at photograph of each woman on the table as he said their names. My father didn't even look at them.

"They reminded me of my daughter. That curly brown hair, those eyes and the body…well, the body pretty much speaks for itself. I have no doubt that you're Nick Stokes can vouch for that fact." He said. I shuddered at his words and I felt Nick rub his hand across my back.

"It's okay," he whispered to me.

"So you just killed them because they reminded you of your daughter?" Warrick spoke for the first time since the interrogation began. My fathers' eyes flicked to him briefly.

"It's a little more complicated than that, Mr Brown," he said.

"Complicated?" Warrick asked.

"That's the problem with girls. They're so…beautiful when they're children, but then they grow up and they all change. Phoenix always had a problem with her mouth even as a child, she was rude. I tried to stop that in her, make her a better person. She was sexy and I couldn't help myself. No man could," my father said, there was a dreamy smile on his face.

"You're wrong about that. A lot of people wouldn't do what you did to her." Grissoms voice was tinged with anger.

"How exactly does a seven year old act 'sexy'?"

"Well she was good at it. She'd look at me with those wide, innocent eyes of hers and I couldn't stop myself." My father said.

"Well, where you're going you won't be destroying anyone else's innocence." Grissom said.

"To jail? Yeah I know. But if anything's worth going to jail for it would be that," my father smiled at Grissom. I made a gagging noise, I felt like I was going to get sick.

"You want to get out of here?" Nick asked me.

"Yeah," I whispered. Nick opened the door and led me from the observation room; I leaned up against the wall in the hallway.

"You hear that?" I asked derisively.

"It was worth it!" I barked a humourless laugh. Nick didn't say anything; he just stood next to me holding my hand. That was all I really wanted anyway.

"And there she herself. Hey, Phee," My fathers voice broke the silence. I glared at him as he came towards us, despite the fact that Brass was holding him by his cuffed hands.

"Get the fuck away from me!" I snarled at him.

"Now is that anyway to speak to your father?" My father asked.

"Do to hell!" I screamed at him. He started laughing, his whole body shaking with mirth.

"We could have had a good time, just you and me. You don't need him," he nodded in Nicks direction.

"He doesn't understand you like I do. But like everyone else in your life he'll leave you and then I'll be there to pick up the pieces of your shattered little life." He smiled at me. I couldn't help myself; I lunged at him, fully intent on kicking the shit out of him. Nick got between us and held me back from him.

"Not in Nevada, Mr Benning, in Nevada we have this little thing we like to call the death penalty." Grissom told my father. Nick held me behind him as he turned to face my father.

"I love Phoenix, which is a whole lot more than can be said for you," the words ground out of Nick. I knew now that he had somewhat managed to calm me down he was letting his own anger come to the surface.

"I have no plans for leaving her, now or ever. In fact if she'll have me I'd marry her. Get him out of here!" Nick looked at Brass. Nick kept himself between my father and me as Brass led him past us. I don't know whether that was to stop my father from talking to me or to stop me from trying to rip his throat out. I watched as they disappeared around the corner. Warrick nudged Grissom with his elbow and nodded in the direction that Brass had just taken. As soon as they were gone Nick turned to me.

"Hey, you're crying," he said gently. He wiped away my tears with his thumbs.

"Yeah, haven't done that since I was a kid, sorry," I mumbled.

"Don't apologise. Anytime you need a shoulder to cry on, you know who to call," he said.

"Only when you're wearing one of your good shirts," I joked lamely. He chuckled a little, as he hugged me.

"Did you mean what you said?" I asked.

"What did I say?" He looked down at me.

"You said if I'd have you then you'd marry me," I said.

"Did I say that?" He asked. I looked up at him, a little embarrassed.

"It's okay if you don't want to," I told him.

"I never said I didn't want to. I just don't remember actually saying it," he said.

"I hate it when you confuse me," I said. He let me go and got down on one knee.

"What…Nick get up before someone sees you!" I hissed at him.

"I don't care if they see me. I want to do this right." He said.

"Ni-" I started.

"Excuse me, I'm the one who's supposed to ask, don't interrupt." He said. I looked around expecting someone to come around the corner any second.

"I realise that my timing may not be perfect, but it's the sentiment that counts, or so they say." His eyes held mine.

"Phoenix Matthews, will you marry me?" He asked. I mumbled something.

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes, it's a yes," I said. He jumped back to his feet, grabbed me around the waist and lifted me off the floor, swinging me around

"Woohoo!" He yelled and then kissing me.

"I take it that you're happy I said yes," I smirked at his reaction.

"You could say that," his smile was wide; he held my hand as he led me down the corridor.

"That makes two of us," I said. He looked back at me as we went through the CSI lab. Grissom and Warrick had been joined by Sara and Catherine who had showed up a few minutes earlier.

"She said yes!" Nick yelled to them. I blushed a bright red.

"Nick!" I cried.

"What?" He turned innocent eyes to me.

"Nothing," I muttered. He looked so happy I didn't want to burst his bubble. Catherine, Sara and Warrick were smiling at us.

"Said yes to what?" Grissom asked, wiping the smile from Nicks face. Nick looked at me.

"Is he serious?" He asked.

"And some say he's a genius," I said. Catherine slapped Grissoms arm.

"You know what, Gil," she said. Sara hugged me and then Nick.

"Congratulations,"

"Isn't it a little earlier to have asked her that?" Grissom asked.

"Stop torturing the kids," Catherine told him. Then there were a round of hugs and handshakes as they all congratulated us.

"They've been together how long? A month?" Grissom said.

"Gil," Catherine gave him a warning look and Grissom wisely decided to shut up. He shook Nicks hand and the hugged me.

"It's about time you deserve some happiness. I'm happy for you, Phoenix," he said.

"Thanks, boss," I grinned at him.

**THE END**

Or is it?


End file.
